JSW Steel Ltd has decided to strengthen its focus on rural market.

To get deeper into the rural market, Mr. Sajjan Jindal, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of JSW Steels, said that the company, which has already opened 60 retail outlets through franchisee route, is planning to take it upto 600 outlets allover India by the next two years.

While talking to media persons at a seminar organized by NMDC in Hyderabad on Monday, Mr. Sajjan said that the company’s overall exports figure accounted for 40% of its production.

In a significant move, the state run Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) has announced that it has awarded Rs. 1,182 crore outsourcing contract to IT major, Wipro Infotech.

ESIC is a constitutional firm which works under the Ministry of Labour & Employment, Government of India. It is considered as the main implementing agency of social security scheme in the country.

In a crucial move, Tube Investments of India Ltd (TII), a Murugappa group company, on Friday announced that said it has invested 1.5 billion rupees (Rs 150 crore) in Cholamandalam DBS Finance by subscribing to 1 per cent fully convertible cumulative preference shares (FCCPS) of DBS.

A top official working for the company said that the shares have since been allotted to both Tube Investments and DBS.

Tata Motors has announced that it has signed up a vehicle finance tie-up with State Bank of Travancore.

With this, India’s biggest automobile company aims to offer an added facility of car finance to its clientele.

The bank offers car loans up to 85% of invoice, for term ranging up to 7 years, at a very competitive rate of 10% up to May 15, 2010 for loans sanctioned on or before April 30, 2009.
 
The facility will be available at SBT divisions and 470 sales touch points of Tata Motors.

Reliance Communications, on Thursday, has made announcement about the launching of a new wireless Internet service, called Reliance Netconnect Broadband Plus, which is based on the CDMA technology.

The telecom major claims it to be the fastest internet service in the country till date.

With a downlink speed of up to 3.1 mega bytes per second (Mbps) and a separate uplink speed of up to 1.8 Mbps, the newly launched service offers 30% higher downlink rate as compared to any other wireless broad band offering.

Industrial production slipped by 0.5% in January 2009 despite stimulus packages declared by the administration to defend against the impact of worldwide slump.

This is the third time repeatedly where IIP contracted during this fiscal.

IIP grew by 6.2% during the corresponding period a year ago.

Manufacturing, which declined 0.8%, led the reduction in industrial production, which was being followed by mining output, which declined by 0.4%.

But, electricity generation increased 1.8% in January 2009.