Garib Rath ready to roll out

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad’s dream project Garib Rath will probably be rolled out on October 4. Lalu, who has turned Indian Railways on its head and made it into a money-spinning machine and who’s now delivering management lectures at the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad, plans to target low and middle income passengers with air-conditioned Raths, tickets to which are going to be extremely affordable. (Earlier, the minister had announced that the first Garib Rath would be launched on October 2, Gandhi Jayanti, from Saharsa in Bihar.) The trains will be run on four sectors: Saharsa-Amritsar, Nizamuddin-Chennai, Nizamuddin-Patna and Nizamuddin-Bandra.

And now, Big Mac to grow southwards

Big Mac is looking down south – very seriously. Brand McDonald’s, that is represented by Hardcastle Restaurants in west and south India, plans to invest Rs 300 crore to Rs 400 crore for further growth in the south and the west over the next three years. But, the south, particularly after the smacking taste of success with Bangalore (the fast food giant, that is celebrating its tenth anniversary in India, opened its 94th restaurant at Brigade Road in the city), is going to figure big-time in the company’s roadmap. To begin with, McDonald’s will focus on IT hub Bangalore and Cyber City Hyderabad and then gradually spread across the region. The approach, says the company, will be to open more stores in one city rather than one store in many cities. Either Bangalore or Hyderabad will be the base around which the hub of its supply chain logistics will be built.

Netting in more users

Guess how many Internet users there are in India? According to a study, conducted jointly by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International, the number this September stands at 37 million. In March this year, it used to be 33 million – so in just six months, there’s been an addition of 4 million into the Internet family! The number of active users (users who have used the Net at least once in the last 30 days), during the same period, has moved up to 25 million in September from 21.1 million in March. The study further estimates that the Internet user base may cross the 40 million mark by March next year. The youth – college students and those below the age of 35 – are the main drivers of Internet usage in India. Smaller towns, too, were contributing towards the growth of Internet penetration: these account for 25 % of all net users and usage is growing at 142 % year on year. The next round of growth, it is felt, will be driven by new and innovative applications such as blogs, P2P, video on demand and online gaming while the old favourites such as email, chat and IM will drive first time users to the medium.

New heights for low costs

Meanwhile, Air Deccan, India’s first low cost carrier, continues to keep flying higher and higher. Recently, the airlines announced the launch of flights from New Delhi to Ahmedabad, Raipur, Goa and Bhubaneshwar. The Delhi-Bhubaneshwar sector will commence operations on 30 October, while the Delhi-Ahmedabad, Delhi-Raipur and Delhi-Goa flights will begin on 20 November. Capt G.R Gopinath, Managing Director Air Deccan, said, “We have an aggressive expansion plan ahead and by the end of this financial year we plan to have a fleet of more than 50 aircraft, which will increase our overall seat capacity by at least 40%. In September 2006, we plan to take delivery of two Airbus A 320 aircraft, one of which will be deployed at Delhi and the other at Ahmedabad. With the increased fleet we will not only launch new sectors and routes but also increase frequency on existing routes. The demand for low cost connectivity is growing and our new flights will convenience business and leisure travellers alike.”

Deadly Duo on fast track

Maruti Udyog Limited’s WagonR Duo that was launched in July this year, already has a waiting list of a month or more – but India’s largest car-maker is confident of clearing the waiting list by October. The duo is the tall-boy hatchback that comes with a factory-fitted LPG kit and runs on both petrol and LPG. Over the period of July-August 2006, MUL has sold 16,437 units of the WagonR compared with 12,526 in the same period in 2005 – an increase of around 20%, all thanks to the new look car (the duo is also a much ‘made over’ version of the earlier WagonR, and looks much less boxy). But evidently, the car’s sales can grow much faster – it’s the production constraints that are putting spokes in the Duo’s wheels. Which is probably one reason why MUL is not all out with the marketing of the deadly Duo that has an obvious product benefit. According to Maruti, the WagonR Duo gives a mileage of 17 to 18 kilometres to the litre, which is about 33 per cent less consumption than the petrol version. Are you ready for some fast action?

Get more out of ghee!

Now, your favourite desi ghee will no longer scare you away with morbid thoughts of heart diseases and hypertension; on the contrary, it’s going to be fortified with life enhancing good stuff. The Karnal based National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) has developed a version of low cholesterol ghee called the Arjuna herbal ghee (with the extract of the health-boosting herb Arjuna terminalia), and the technologies for its commercial manufacture is now ready to be passed on to the dairy industry after being patented. Here’s the best news. The new healthy ghee will not only retain the taste, flavour, colour and consistency of traditional ghee (Arjuna ghee has already received a consumer acceptability of over 85%), but also boost the immune system, guard against cholesterol-related problems and strengthen the arteries. Arjuna terminalia, for instance, contains antioxidants like polyphenols, terpenoid and phytosterol; the low cholesterol ghee is supposed to contain 85% lower cholesterol than desi ghee. All contents, naturally, conform to the specifications laid down by the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act rules and Agmark norms. So get ready to dig into ghee – and not feel guilty about it!

Beauty with brains

It’s not just New Delhi that has ambitious plans of hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2010. Javed Habib Hair and Beauty is planning to have a network of 500 salons by the same time! With that as a longer-term goal, the chain will set up 100 new salons in India and abroad next year – and it also plans to double its business this year from around Rs 10 crore in 2005-06. While in India, the company will be concentrating on metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad, side by side it is also looking at aggressive overseas expansion, and is busy studying international markets and fashion capitals (already, it has a presence in eight salons across London, New York, Dhaka and Kathmandu). And finally, what’s the business of beauty without a little education and smartening up of grey cell? So, Javed Habib also plans to explore the education and training businesses. It currently runs seven schools across India and Kathmandu, and will set-up a clutch of new ones in 2007.

Airfares, No Sedive... so, go West!

Here’s some great news for all those who were planning to travel through to the West in the near future: fares are set to hit rock bottom over the next two months or so. Airlines have slashed airfares from India to the US and Europe by a whopping 15-20 % thanks to the drop in leisure travellers at this time of the year, together with a huge addition in capacity. One sector that’s bound to be a big hit is the India-London one: even a year ago, there were 14 flights to London every week; now, India has over 100 flights a week to London. The US sector too has expanded with American Airlines and Continental introducing flights from Delhi. Air India, for instance, is now offering Delhi-London-Delhi for just Rs 16,000, and flights to New York for all of Rs 31,000. So, whereas two months ago, fares on American sector were in the Rs 45,000 plus taxes region, they’ve now nosedived to Rs 31,000-35,000 plus taxes. Likewise, Lufthansa and British Airways are offering the India to New York sectors for Rs 43,000 (a fall of Rs 10,000 from just two months ago). Not to be left behind, even Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic is going the discount way: it’s now offering India-US for Rs 30,400, and Delhi-London-Delhi for Rs 16,000 (the fare was Rs 20,000 two months ago). On the eastern side of the world, however, it’s a different story. Fares to South East Asia are all set to go up from October, as that is going to be the busiest season travel to that part of the world. Analysts feel that this season of good fortune for travelers may not last for too long as fares are likely to go up by December again. Westward ho!

Mauritius beckons!

Mauritius is banking on Indian tourists like never before. The Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA) is targeting a 20 to 30% increase in Indian tourist inflow by the end of this year, and for that, special leisure packages have been worked out. These include 3 site-seeing tours, water sports and airport transport for anything between $400 to $3,000, depending on the hotel you want to stay in. There are also whopping 25-50 per cent discounts being offered to honeymooners. Already the statistics in this vacationers’ paradise – that gives facilities like visas on arrival – are impressive: during 2005, inbound tourism from India grew by 20.4 % (there were 29,755 arrivals). Till July this year 23,151 tourists have visited Mauritius from India (an increase of 30.7 % over 2005 for the same period). That’s India’s penchant for sun-kissed beaches!

Can Reliance rely on Dhoni?

Flamboyant cricketer M S Dhoni is, in all likelihood, set to be a part of the Reliance Mobile campaign’s star cast; the campaign is slated to be on air by the end of this month. Till now, it’s been officially confirmed that the new campaign – that’s going to aggressively target the entire length and breadth of India in the GSM telephony segment – will be a multi-starrer of sorts with film stars, cricketers and music stars. The buzz is that the campaign will showcase six big stars, in all. Cellular operators cashing on celebrity ambassadors is nothing new. Tendulkar has endorsed Airtel; Rahul Dravid signed up with Hutch; Kajol & Devgan for Tata Indicom and Abhishek Bachchan for Motorola... Created by Cartwheels, run by JWT’s former creative head, D Ramakrishna, Reliance’s GSM ambitions are finally all set to be rolled out on a grand scale.