Hyderabad: Lanco Infratech Ltd on Friday said its subsidiary Lanco Kondapalli Power Ltd has entered into power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Telangana and Andhra Pradesh electricity distribution companies to sell about 1,108 megawatt (MW) of gas-based power for six months starting October.

Lanco has secured gas under the pooling mechanism for 1 October to 31 March 2016 to supply power at Rs.4.70 per kilowatt hour (kWh) and at 50% plant load factor (PLF), a measure of capacity utilization.

Almost 12 years after it was first suggested, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will complete the merger of Forward Markets Commission (FMC) with itself on Monday. This will bring the commodities derivatives market and its brokers under Sebi norms and integrate the commodities derivatives and securities trading markets in an orderly manner.

Ironically, the Bombay High Court on the same day will hear a petition filed by a group of employees of the commodites market regulator opposing the merger as they have been left out of the merged entity.

Giving a thrust to local manufacturing of luxury cars, automaker Mercedes-Benz rolled out the Maybach S500 sedan from its India plant, making the facility on the outskirts of Pune only the second outside Germany to produce the car.

Apart from the locally-manufactured Maybach S500, which will sell for Rs 1.67 crore, the German car major also introduced the imported Maybach S600 in the domestic market, which comes with a price tag of Rs 2.6 crore. Both prices are ex-showroom, Pune.

ICICI Bank, the country's largest private sector lender, has been aggressive on unsecured lending, especially personal loans. (An unsecured loan is one that is obtained without the use of property as guarantee for the loan. Borrowers generally must have high credit ratings to be approved for an unsecured loan. Personal loans (in spite of their high interest rates) are probably the best way to go for individuals looking to borrow relatively small amounts of money, and who are able to repay the loan within a couple of years.)

Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest carmaker, has raised the average gross salary of the 12,900 workers at its facilities in Manesar and Gurgaon by Rs 16,800 a month, spread through three years beginning April this year. This is seven per cent lower than the salary rise of Rs 18,000 given by the company for the three years ended March this year. Last week, Ford had signed a wage agreement with the workers’ union at its Chennai plant, approving a rise of Rs 15,000 a month, spread through three years. The average salary of the workers is Rs 30,000-35,000 a month.

Idea Cellular, India's third largest telecom operator by subscribers, today said it would move its 1.5 million prepaid customers who are on a per-minute plan to a per-second billing plan over the next 30 days.

“We will now be offering PSB (per second billing) plan, by default, to our entire base of nearly 157 million existing and new prepaid users,” said Sashi Shankar, chief marketing officer of Idea Cellular.

Tata Motors, India’s largest automaker, is trading at nearly half the price it was only six months ago. On a valuation basis, the stock now trades at 7.7 times its expected FY16 profit numbers, against 24.1 times for car major Maruti Suzuki and 22.6 times for Ashok Leyland, its main competitor in the commercial vehicle segment.

So does it make sense to buy Tata Motors at current levels, given the huge valuation gap with its peers? Nearly 68% of the analysts who track the company say that the stock is a buy, while 8% feel it is a hold and only 24% say it is a sell.

Calcutta, Sept. 23: Coal India may have to curtail its investment plans as the PSU needs to allot more funds for compensation to land losers, under a new government ruling. The company had planned to invest a mammoth Rs 60,000 crore to produce almost 900 million tonnes of coal by the end of the decade, a target which may be out of reach now.

The Centre's decision to offer uniform compensation to land losers under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transperancy in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 may force Coal India to change its plans.

Mumbai: Bajaj Auto Ltd is set to begin exports of the RE60, India’s first quadricycle, after it got all requisite approvals from a European certification agency. The RE60’s launch in India has been delayed due to public interest litigations filed against its launch which are still being heard in the Supreme Court.

Against that backdrop, the go-ahead to begin exports to Europe comes as a significant relief for Bajaj Auto.

Mecca, Saudi Arabia: At least 220 pilgrims were killed on Thursday in a crush at Mina, outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca, where some two million people are performing the annual hajj pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia’s civil defence authority said.

The crush, in which at least 450 others were injured, took place on Street 204 of the camp city at Mina, a few kilometres east of Mecca, where pilgrims stay for several days during the climax of the haj.

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