A new and innovative consultancy service is on the cards for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Uttarakhand.

Retirees to provide consultancy to MSMEs

Business Standard

The global recession may be showing signs of receding, but Kolkata&rsquo;s leather manufacturers and exporters are still waiting to see the silver lining in the clouds. Many believe that this could happen in the &lsquo;August winter season&rsquo; in 2010 as bulk orders in 2009 have seen no real change compared to the last year-and-a-half of the downturn.

Leather units hit by declining orders

Low-budget movies have earned returns on investment of 300 per cent
Tamil Nadu&rsquo;s smaller production houses, makers of low-budget films, are beginning to put their stamp on the state&rsquo;s film industry which, according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), contributes one per cent of Tamil Nadu&rsquo;s state domestic product, estimated at Rs 3,08,136 crore at constant prices in 2008-09.
Small-budget films are becoming popular with movie buffs, notes

Small film makers earn big profits in Tamil Nadu

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Orissa are concerned over non-issuance of the required notification for reimbursement of Value Added Tax (VAT) by the state government. This is despite the budgetary provision of Rs 1 crore in the 2009-10 state budget.

Orissa SMEs resent delay in notifying incentives

Retailers are smiling again this Diwali, but not as widely as they did in the boom time of 2007. Some of the biggest retailers such as Future Group, Spencer's Retail and Bharti Retail, among others, say they expect 20-30 per cent increase in Diwali sales. Last year&rsquo;s Diwali, when the global economy had skidded, it was just about 5-10 per cent.

Retailers expect brighter Diwali, see jump in sales

The firecracker industry in Sivakasi, in interior Tamil Nadu, from where 95 per cent of the Indian output comes from, has said production has declined 20 per cent this year.

Firecracker output down 20% this time, say Sivakasi units

Tractor ancillaries located in and around Chandigarh have defied the downturn and are on a high growth path, at a time when all other industrial clusters in the region are going through difficult times.

Tractor ancillaries on high growth path

Goods cleared from EOU to DTA suffer excise duty equivalent to customs duty payable on a like product, if imported. While calculating the duty amount, the customs tariff rate read with any exemption notification has to be reckoned. Benefit of any end-use-based exemption notification can also be taken, if the end-use conditions are satisfied. Therefore, only 3.09 per cent duty has to be paid on clearances by EOU, under EPCG scheme. In this connection, you may refer to DGFT Policy Circular no.

&#39;EOU-made goods sold in DTA must pay 3.09 pc excise&#39;

Biomass energy developers in Andhra Pradesh have been feeling the pinch of rising fuel prices over the past few months. With the kharif crop failing due to drought this year, the price of rice husk, which has the highest calorific value among the biomass used, is likely to go up further. Also, the recent floods in the state will add to the rising price of biomass.

Rising fuel costs make biomass energy unattractive

The global economic downturn has had a greater impact on the unorganised segment of the timber industry in Kolkata than is at first visible. The crisis has served to further highlight the differences in the way the organised and unorganised segments of the timber industry in the city function.

Kolkata&#39;s unorganised timber industry in distress

Downstream polymer processing units from Gujarat are moving out to tax-free havens like Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and neighbouring Daman-Silvassa, blaming high power tariffs.

Polymer firms exit Gujarat, blame high power tariff

The BBN belt, located at the foothills of the Shivalik Ranges, is about 60 km from Chandigarh on National Highway 21A.

Pharma units to invest even as tax holiday nears an end

The procedure of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) for grant of permission to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to commence production &mdash; including its move to charge a consent fee based on a unit&rsquo;s capital investment &mdash; is causing hardship to enterprises in the state.

Pollution Board's high fees hit small and medium industries in Karnataka

More than a year after it came into effect (on April 1, 2008), the Uttarakhand government&rsquo;s hill industrial policy for small units has failed to trigger industrial activity.

Uttarakhand hill industry policy a damp squib

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), to which most banks are chary of lending, are being actively wooed by private equity (PE) investors. According to industry representatives around 70 per cent of the PE investment that came into India last year was invested in SMEs.

Private equity investors bet big on Indian SMEs

Punjab&rsquo;s textile cluster, in Ludhiana and Lalru (about 30 km from Chandigarh), is gearing up to overcome the impact of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP). The scheme guarantees 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

Labour scarce in textile units

Sitting in a dark room full of woollen yarn, Samten, 62, a Tibetan refugee, is busy making balls of wool. Despite her old age, Samten labours hard in unknotting the jumbled yarn at Rajpur village in Dehradun, nestled in the foothills of the hill resort of Mussoorie.

Tibetan carpet makers weave their magic in Dehradun

At a time when the Indian automobile sector is slowly getting back on track, forging units in the western region are facing severe hurdles in beating their Chinese counterparts in pricing. Forging units saw a 45 per cent drop in revenues across India in 2008-09, and expect that cheap Chinese forged components will prevent them from improving their business despite the current upsurge in the auto sector.

Forging units hit by imports

Emboldened by the growing consumer preference for value-added dairy products, mid-sized dairy companies in West Bengal are investing close to Rs 200 crore over the next few years in backward and forward integration.

Dairy units in Bengal plan major expansion

With 100 days of work assured to unskilled workers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP), the labour supply to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the state has been impacted.

Workers take up rural jobs

We earn foreign exchange through services like star hotels, rentals of service apartments, restaurants and other services in the tourism sector, besides sale of immovable property. Please let us know whether we can get Served from India scrips (SFIS) for foreign exchange earned in the previous two years, whether the benefits will be affected if we sell our business and whether we can import capital goods under Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme.

'Approved hotels entitled to SFIS at 10% of forex earnings'

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