The Indian market opened flat today mirroring negative opening trades in the SGX Nifty and most of the Asian bourses. The US markets, after moving sharply lower in early trading on Friday, regained some ground in the latter part of trading, but finally ended the session in red. The sell-off seen at the start of trading came on the back of a report from the Labor Department showing much weaker than expected job growth in the month of March. The report showed that employment edged up by 88,000 jobs in March following an increase of 268,000 in February. A separate report from the Commerce Department showed that the U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly narrowed in the month of February, which helped to limit the downside for the markets. Most of the European bourses ended Friday’s trading session notably lower, on back of downbeat U.S jobs data, which overshadowed positive economic data coming from Germany. Meanwhile, Indian markets posted modest losses on Friday, extending the two-day sell-off as speculation of early elections and deteriorating economic data spooked investor sentiment.
CIL resumes coal supply to NTPC units
The Coal Ministry has directed state-owned Coal India to continue supplying at least 50 per cent of the fuel requirements to NTPC for the time being, even as CIL has stopped supplies to the power major. "The supply (of coal by CIL to NTPC) has been discontinued. CIL had taken a decision. But instructions have been sent by our ministry (to CIL) that at least 50 per cent of supply should continue for the time being," Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said on Friday on the sidelines of a conference organised by the Policy Development Initiative. This development follows media reports that CIL had switched off fuel supply to the power major after NTPC held back payments. "In the meantime, after having talks with NTPC, the dues will be recovered," Mr Jaiswal added. NTPC and CIL have locked horns over theh quality of coal being supplied. "We are ready for a third-party inspection (of coal) at the loading point, but not at the reaching point (of coal)," the coal minister said today. NTPC, the country's largest power producer, has refused to sign fuel supply agreements (FSAs) with CIL as it deems the supply to be of inferior quality. NTPC buys close to 140 million tonnes of coal for its thermal power plants. Unlike most of CIL's other customers, it has not signed an FSA for its 4,500 MW power generation capacity. NTPC said the company has resolved all the issues with CIL and the only matter coming in the way of signing the FSAs is "poor quality" coal. Power Secretary P Uma Shankar has said his ministry and the Coal Ministry should be able to solve the problem amicably. Source: NDTV
L&T Construction bagged `2,400cr orders in March
Engineering firm Larsen & Toubro (L&T) today said it bagged orders worth Rs 2,004 crore across various business segments in March. The company's construction arm, L&T Construction, has bagged Rs 1,070 crore orders in its building and factories business for the construction of residential apartments in the southern part of the country, a company statement said. Source: Economic Times
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