Madhucon Projects JV (joint venture) has grabbed an order worth USD 3.9 million road project order from the Nepal government.

The company officials told reporters that the scope of the order includes up-gradation of Sanfebagar – Martadi road under road improvement project scheme funded by Exim Bank of India.

In a statement to BSE, the company said that it also plans to increase its thermal power plant capacity to 1,920 MW at Krishnapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

National Aluminium Company Ltd (NALCO) has announced that Mr. AK Srivastava will be the new CMD of the company. MR. Srivastava has taken the charge after Shri. C R Pradhan quitted as the CMD of the company.

The newly appointed CMD, Mr. Srivastava is a mechanical engineer by profession. He had done his B. Tech in mechanical engineering and M. tech in industrial engineering from IIT, Delhi.

Mr. Srivastava has 30 years of professional experience in the public sector enterprises in different fields of engineering and management. 

A survey conducted by FICCI has revealed that the Indian Hotel Industry is on its way to recovery. Over 75% of the respondents expressed that their business will improve in the coming six months.

The FICCI report said, “"While nearly 40 per cent of the participants said the current performance of their industry is moderately-to- substantially better than the last six months, nearly 75 per cent feel that the hotel industry's performance would improve in the next six months.”

Due to the shortfall of 6 million hectares of rice production in the last six months, the prices of rice will go up, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar emphasized the requirement to compensate it in the Rabi season.

During the annual Rabi Campaign Conference, Mr. Pawar said, “It is important to us to plan and take compensatory steps to make good the production losses of Kharif crops by careful and judicious planning of the Rabi season.”

Ispat Industries (IIL) is all set to invest Rs 2000 crore in the next two years. The company is planning to establish a captive power plant, a coke oven battery and a pellet plant at existing plant location at Dolvi in Maharasthra.

In the mean time, the company is scheduled to invest Rs 480 crore on two power units of 55MW each. The company has set aside Rs 600 crore for a 2.4 mt pellet plant, while the huge portion of the current amount will go into a one million tonne coke oven battery worth Rs 1,100 crore.

Irritated sugar traders of Madhya Pradesh have decided to go on indefinite strike from Oct 1. The state sugar traders have taken the decision to protest against the state government’s move to confiscate the commodity from wholesalers and introducing license from them.

As per a notice issued on a telecoms department website by the central Government, the auction of much awaited 3G spectrum will take place on December 7.

The bids for the 3G spectrum will be invited from October 26 to November 13.

The notice also said that the EVDO (CDMA version of 3G) and broadband wireless access (WiMAX) would take place after two days after the auctions for 3G spectrum.

According to the reports, gold price may touch Rs 18,000 per 10 gram by Diwali as the demand for gold increases during that period of time.

At present, market price of 10 gram gold is Rs 16,000. It is anticipated that gold price may increase by Rs 2000 per 10 gram by Diwali followed by a marriage season in the country.

While talking to media, Assocham President, Mr. Sajjan Jindal said, "The bullion is likely to gradually see spurt in its prices and stay around Rs 18,000 per 10 gram by Diwali."

Moving a step forward, Indian Finance Minister, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee said that he will talk to the West Bengal government on the issue of land allocation to Wipro and Infosys to retain IT majors in the state.

During a press release, Finance Minister said, "It is unfortunate. It does not convey a good signal. I will talk to state government to see if land is provided to the companies."

He also ensured that the IT majors will provide jobs to at least 5,000 to 10,000 youths in the state.

Tea import by India, the world's biggest manufacturer after China, has recorded a rise of 28% in July.

The rise comes at the time when 10% global tea shortage is expected by the next year as drought affects top exporting regions like India, Sri Lanka and Kenya.

Tea companies listed on BSE have posted an average gain of of 25% in the last month.