India's ambitious plan to invest $500 billion in physical infrastructure during the 11th Plan (2007-2012) could go awry with huge slippages in key sectors like railways, roads & bridges and ports, data gathered by FE of the actual investments in the first three years of the Plan demonstrate.

While the port sector, where total intended investment for the entire Plan period is Rs 88,000 crore reported the biggest shortfall (61 per cent), investments in the railway and road sectors where absolute amounts pegged at the beginning of the Plan were much higher (Rs 2.62 lakh crore and Rs 3.14 crore respectively), the slippages were 28 per cent and 22 per cent, in that order. In the power sector, where the projected investments are the highest at Rs 6.6 lakh crore for the Plan, the shortfall in the first three years of the Plan was 12 per cent

- Corporate India is banking aggressively on domestic lenders, as the euro zone crisis chokes the overseas debt market, particularly the foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCB) market.

Essar Steel Holdings Ltd has pulled a planned $750-million sale of dollar-denominated bonds, Bloomberg said in a report on Wednesday. Essar Steel is the fourth Indian firm to postpone an FCCB issue since February, after Union Bank of India dropped its plan to float a Medium Term Notes programme despite making presentations to investors. Bank of India and Bank of Baroda too cancelled their debt issues temporarily. All three banks were spooked by the volatility in the European credit markets.

THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE:

- Life insurance companies are not in favour of SEBI's proposal that all cases relating to unit-linked insurance plans (ULIPs) be heard in the Supreme Court.

This must be seen in the context of the market regulator filing a petition seeking clubbing and transfer of two public interest litigations (PILs), filed in separate High Courts, to the Supreme Court.

According to the insurers, the PILs deal with different issues. While the PIL filed in the Bombay High Court sought the reversal of SEBI's ban on sale of ULIPs, the PIL filed in the Lucknow High Court was against insurance companies fleecing customers through ULIPs, said an official with a leading insurance company who did not want to be named. Besides, if the cases are heard at a High Court, the option of a right of appeal to the Supreme Court will still be open, the official said. SEBI had moved the Supreme Court last week seeking transfer of the two PILs filed in the Bombay and Lucknow High Courts to the apex court. The Supreme Court had issued notices to the Centre, the insurance regulator IRDA and the 14 insurance companies for their response

- The Finance Ministry has agreed to give Rs 14,000 crore more to public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) for 2009-10 as part of the compensation for the losses incurred by them on sale of domestic LPG and PDS kerosene.

Against losses of Rs 31,621 crore on the two cooking fuels during the last fiscal, the Finance Ministry had given Rs 12,000 crore in cash to the OMCs. Our demand was for the remaining amount (about Rs 19,620 crore) and they have agreed to release an additional Rs 14,000 crore cash subsidy against this, the Petroleum Minister, Mr Murli Deora, told newspersons here on Wednesday.

THE ECONOMIC TIMES:

- Sales honchos at India's top tech firms Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro are busy chasing multi-billion contracts this summer from potential customers, including China Mobile, Verizon US and Bharti Airtel, against multinational rivals. Outsourcing experts from research firms such as Ovum said around 500 contracts worth nearly $37.5 billion are set to expire by September this year, ranging anywhere between $1 million and $1 billion each. It's a long, tough summer, said a senior official at one of the Indian tech firms exploring opportunities at telecom majors such as China Mobile and Verizon. Coming out of recession, we are facing perhaps the toughest sales challenge ever the deals are smaller, competition is breathing down our necks and there is this huge expectation that we are back to normal, he added, requesting anonymity

- It's not without reason that the security agencies continue to eye Huawei with suspicion. For, the Chinese firm's R&D facility in Bangalore operates with a secrecy so intense that a larger part of its premises are completely out of bounds for Indians. At Huawei Technologies' R&D facility in Bangalore, only the ground and first floors are reportedly accessible to Indian staff. The floors beyond can be accessed only by the Chinese executives and managers, a top intelligence official told ET.

THE BUSINESS STANDARD:

- Indian-American Nitin Nohria was today named the 10th Dean of Harvard Business School (HBS). The first person of Indian origin to achieve this honour, he will assume charge on July 1.

Nohria succeeds Jay Light, who will step down at the end of the current academic year, HBS said in a release today. In December 2009, Light had announced his plans to retire at the end of the 2009-10 academic year after five years as dean and four decades of distinguished service at HBS, which has been ranked as the world's third best MBA institute in 2010 by the Financial Times.

- Jagran Prakashan has zoomed 7 per cent to Rs 123 after the company bought the print business of Mid-Day Multimedia (MML). In a share swap deal, shareholders of Mid-Day Multimedia would get two shares of Jagran for every seven shares held in the company. Jagran Prakashan had opened at Rs 120 on the BSE and has touched a high of Rs 126 thus far, with around 42,000 equity shares changing hands. And the shares of MML are trading up 4 per cent at Rs 35, accompanied by huge volumes of 1.34 million equity shares as against an average 633,000 shares in the past two weeks

THE HINDUSTAN TIMES:

- In its foray into the passenger car segment, the country's second largest two wheeler manufacturer Bajaj Auto Ltd is aiming for a fuel efficiency of 30 kmpl for its ultra low cost car, which is being developed in collaboration with Renault-Nissan. The company said it will also be the most environment friendly car in the country. Earlier this week, Renault Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn had confirmed that it is looking to price the car at $2500 (Rs 1.1 lakh), which will make it even less expensive than Tata's Nano.

- The country's largest oil refining and marketing company, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), is likely to make a follow on public offer (FPO) by the end of this calendar year. Government sources said the Department of Disinvestment (DoD) is revisiting the possibility of an FPO in IOC. DoD had been arguing that any FPO in state-owned oil marketing companies is possible only if the existing skewed pricing structure for auto and cooking fuels is corrected.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had recently decided to constitute an Empowered Group of Ministers to decide on freeing petrol and diesel prices from government control.

THE TIMES OF INDIA:

- Mahindra Satyam currently on a high after a big ticket order win from BASF IT Services on Wednesday said the World Bank is having a relook at the ban imposed by the institution on the Indian company when it was under the Rajus. "Mahindra Satyam has requested....(it's) under active consideration," Mahindra Satyam CEO C P Gurnani told TOI through an SMS. He was responding to a question on whether the World Bank has given any indication on relaxing the ban.