IFCI broke collateral norms: RBI
Companies known and unknown, listed and unlisted, have received loans without any collaterals, courtesy IFCI Ltd. This development financial institution has not discriminated on the promoters and their background and least of all, their credit- worthiness, while giving^ out loans. Naturally, the companies have not bothered to pay back. And the IFCI staff have routinely downgraded these accounts from standard to non-performing assets (NPAs), says a Reserve Bank of India report. The saga does not end here. The list of promoters of these companies consists of many big names of corporate India.
I have not asked for US sanctions: Lay
The Enron chief, Mr Kenneth Lay, today asserted that he had not asked the US Government to consider imposing sanctions against India and said their approach was to settle the issue amicably by selling its stake. Earlier, in an interview to Financial Times, he had been reported as to have threatened India with new US sanctions unless the company and its partners get back the full $1 billion in costs incurred in building the project in Maharashtra.
Insurance cos can decide on LTA
The Centre has decided to permit the public sector insurance (PSI) companies to exercise their discretion in permitting the employees in availing themselves of the leave travel allowance (LTA) facility. The decision comes in the wake of the PSU insurance companies contending that the Centre's directive was applicable only to its own departments and not to the public sector enterprises. The Ministry of Finance has conveyed this to all the PSI companies.