Business Roundup 

LIC plans mega data warehousing project

What is India News Service, 16 June 2004, 1630 hrs

Competition from the private sector has prompted the government monolith Life Insurance Corporation of India to undertake the country\92s largest data warehousing project after the Reserve Bank of India. Another government giant, Coal India Ltd, has announced a hike to bring its selling prices close to international rates. 

LIC has roped in Wipro and IBM to undertake its datamining project, and could soon be taking on the private sector with aggressive marketing strategies. The project\92s objective is to analyse consumer behaviour and assign a single customer identification number to track all products he or she may own \97 mutual funds, home loans, and bank accounts. 

Private sector competition is fast expanding and eating into the state insurer\92s marketshare. Private sector companies have already captured 13 per cent of the market, but LIC can still pride itself on a policyholder base of over 160 million. It sells over 20 million policies every year.

The datamining will be implemented over the next three years. Capturing and analysing consumer behaviour will help LIC chalk out and devise customised insurance solutions.

After a gap of two years, Coal India Ltd announced an average price hike of 16.7 per cent for all grades of coal sold in the domestic market to bring its selling prices closer to the international rates. 

The average price hike of 16 per cent will add more than Rs 4,000 crore to Coal India revenues. Inflow could be higher if it grows 4-5 per cent in volumes over last year. Chairman S Kumar said even after the hike, a tonne of the company\92s coking coal would cost Rs 850 less than landed imported coal.

Coal supplies more than 60 per cent of the country\92s energy requirements. Most power, steel and cement plants run on coal.

A US envoy on Wednesday urged the government to remove protectionist measures affecting American exports to India. "The street is not two-way. We have a highway going to the US and a bullock-cart coming in the direction of India," US Consul General George N Sibley said.

The centre has set up a high-level committee to suggest ways to improve the quality of tea and increase productivity.

The country's $1.5 billion tea industry has been facing its worst ever crisis, with prices dropping in weekly auctions, and exports and domestic consumption slumping.

The expert panel will stay in touch with India's top three tea research institutes -- the Tocklai Research Association in Assam, the Tea Research Foundation in southern India and the Darjeeling Tea Research Centre in West Bengal -- to work out quality improvement measures.

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), India's largest telecom carrier by sales, is likely to award contracts for 11 million GSM lines to Finnish giant Nokia and Canada's Nortel, a business daily said on Wednesday.

Overall:

LIC began datamining: The state insurer is taking on the private sector with an aggressive customer profile project.

Government hiked fuel prices: Petrol, diesel and coal prices went up.

Expert panel was formed: It will see how India\92s tea industry can recover from its crisis days.

BSNL talked to Nokia and Nortel: It is likely to award a huge contract to the telecom giants.