Public Sector lender Allahabad Bank is targeting a growth of 20 percent in its loan portfolio and 17 per cent in deposits this fiscal.

According to the bank, the loan growth will be mainly from small and medium enterprises, steel, cement and commercial real estate sectors.

Apart from this, the bank is targeting a premium income of Rs 400 crore annually from general insurance business, which would be set up in partnership with other banks and financial institutions by year 2011.

The bank also intends to maintain the net interest margin at 2.75 % and the capital adequacy ratio at 11% during the current financial year.

Navratna PSU Bharat Electronics Limited has secured an Rs 100 crore order to manufacture and supply 102,000 electronic voting machines for the forthcoming assembly elections in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Sikkim and Parliament elections in 2009.

BEL has dispatched the first batch of 5,000 EVM yesterday, while the rest order is scheduled to be supplied in the next two months

Sterlite Technologies, a leading global provider of wire and cable solutions for the power and telecom industry, has pocketed a contract worth Rs 24 crore from Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), to supply fiber optic cables with the highest density ever to be deployed in the country.

Under the arrangement, the company would supply ribbon-liter 288F ribbon fiber optic cables to BSNL, which BSNL would initially install at nearly 100 city sites across the country. This is the first time ever that, fiber optic cables higher than 144F would be deployed in India.