After an unofficial ban on Chinese telecom equipment vendors by Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and imposition of stringent norms on imported equipments on security issues, the Chinese vendors have started receiving orders from Indian telecom service providers to get ready for the rollout of 3G services. The two Chinese vendors who received clearances are Huawei and ZTE.

The revised norms for imported telecom equipments were announced by DoT in July, which drew large-scale protests from vendors worldwide. The new rules required equipment suppliers to provide government access to the equipment’s source code and design. Also, the suppliers will be held responsible for any security breach and hefty fine levied.

As the relationship between DoT and vendors were straining with the deadline for 3G rollout looming large, the Prime Minister’s Office is believed to have intervened, leading to rollback to earlier less stringent rules. Nokia Siemens was the first beneficiary under this last month. However, it was unclear whether this was a one-off case and will extend to other vendors, especially Chinese ones.

In the 3G auction held earlier this year, Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) had won in nine circles. Both Nokia Siemens and Huawei were selected by TTSL as suppliers for its 3G rollout. While Nokia will rollout 3G network in four circles, Huawei will do so in five. The clearance from DoT based on liberal norms has enabled the Chinese vendor to land the second order in the country for 3G gear. Huawei’s first deal was signed with Reliance Communications.

Confirming the news TTSL Chief Technology Officer and President (Enterprise Business) A G Rao said, “The company will provide superior 3G technology and services to all our esteemed consumers, and to this end, we are getting the latest LTE-ready technology from our technology partner, Huawei.”

The latest development in the ongoing saga of decontrolling sugar from government control is Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar meeting the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday to present a case for liberating the sector. Earlier the parliamentary panel on food and agriculture had recommended against sugar decontrol, saying that it will harm both farmers and consumers.

The sugar industry, at present, is controlled by government, by specifying the quantity to be sold in the open market and through public distribution system (PDS) every month. With the imminent bumper crop, which will be ready in two months’ time, the move to decontrol sugar is gaining momentum.

The presentation made by Mr. Pawar to the Prime Minister is believed to include plans and methods Food Ministry will be adapting to free sugar industry from governmental control. Mr. Pawar is understood to have discussed the beneficial outcomes of the move for farmers and consumers.

Among the proposals put forth by Food Ministry is doing away with the practice of setting monthly quota for sale of sugar in open market and through ration shops. Now, sugar mills are bound by law to sell 20% of the sugar produced to government for sale in ration shops. To meet the sugar requirement for PDS, the ministry has advocated purchase of sugar from the open market.

It is believed that the Food Ministry has proposed to give freedom to farmers to sell their produce wherever they want to, instead of the present practice of selling sugarcane to specified mills.

Earlier, Mr. Pawar had hinted that despite decontrolling sugar industry, the government would continue to fix Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) for sugarcane to protect farmers from exploitation. This is the minimum price to be paid by mills to buy sugarcane from farmers.

As predicted and expected by Analysis the sales of some of the top most Indian automobile manufacturers have risen by 20 to 30 percent and the demand continues to rise with the onset of the festival season.  However they have also cautioned the automobile manufacturers that this demand would be curtailed by the expected increase in interest rates.

The leading car manufacturer in India Maruti Suzuki has reported a 24 percent rise of sales in August.

A senior auto analyst with Angel Broking, Vaishali Jajoo has said “The second half of the year is a better period for the auto sales due to the festive season. Looking at the festive seasons coming in, dealers start stocking up. We can see that in the next month as well. The economy has also picked up and normal monsoon will also have a positive impact on rural sales,” she added.

The festival season starting out in September is at its peak in November after Diwali, the festival of lights.

India’s leading manufacturer of buses and trucks, Tata Motors Ltd. has also posted a jump of 32 percent in their auto sales in the month of August. A 29 percent jump has also been reported by Mahindra and Mahindra who is India largest tractors and utility manufacturer.

Jajoo has said that while there were expectations that the auto sales would increase further, however the growth would not be sustainable in comparison to the kind of robust growth that was witnessed during the earlier year. The main concern being expected increase of interest rates.

There have been four interest rates hike since March in order to reduce the effects of inflation and its is feared that the in order to further curb these effects, the central banks might increase the rates.

She also added “I think the interest rate hikes have still not impacted because, for one thing, the economic growth is higher, the consumer confidence has increased. Maybe if it increases by another 100 basis points, we can see the actual impact on financing and volumes.”

Another major challenge that Indian auto manufacturers are facing is the limited supply of components from the vendors that has been hampering their productions. These problems are faced by auto makers like Maruti and Mahindra and Mahindra.

The Department of Telecom, DoT has finally abided by their promise to the 3G auction winners, of allocating the 3G spectrum by 1st September 2010 to the winners. Sources in the Department of Telecom have revealed this information.

The UASL, Unified Access Service License agreements have been amended by the Department of Telecommunication to include 3G services too. Sources also said that this amendment I would be the foundation the winners to go ahead with their roll out plans.

The Secretary General of AUSPI Mr. S C Khanna, has said, “Service providers have got the spectrum and they are happy about the timely delivery of spectrum to them.”

Telecom giants Reliance communications (RCOM) and Bharti Airtel have won majority of the 3G airwaves, 13 each in the 22 telecom zones on offer. Aircel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone Essar and Tata Teleservices are the other major telecom operators who had participated in the auction and had each won 13, 11, 9 and 9 circles respectively.

More or less prepared with their roll out plans, this announcement was made by all the winners and some of the telecom operators like Tata Teleservices even went one step ahead and have already identified and finalized their vendors for the 3G equipments. Tata Teleservices has selected Nokia Siemens Network as their vendor. Other winners are still in the process for finalizing their vendors and all have confirmed that this process is in its final stages.

India’s largest telecom service provider, Bharti Airtel has confirmed that they are ready with their final plans and would immediately commence roll out as soon as they are allocated the spectrum.

Talks of infrastructure sharing have been increasingly doing the rounds, in an attempt to curb the costs. It will become easier for the service providers to achieve their goals, especially with the specialized tower companies already established and ready to offer services.

Agreements for roaming are also in the process of being finalized as no telecom service provider has won a pan India spectrum thus placing paramount important on the roaming agreements being in place as it is very important to provide coverage across India.