Tiruchian

Mphasis, an EDS company ( will be a HP company soon) is planning to setup a BPO operations in Trichy and Coimbatore which will start operating from the end of 2008. It will have about 1500 people working in these centers although the distribution between Trichy and Coimbatore is not known.  Mphasis has about 27000 employees in India and they are planning to add 8000 more in 2008.

BHEL has won a mega order worth $270 million for setting up a 153 MW power plant at the upcoming Guru Gobind Singh Refinery at Bhatinda in Punjab. The prestigious order has been placed by HMEL, a joint venture of HPCL and Mittal Energy Ltd. For the scope of the work that includes design, engineering, manufacture, supply, erection and commissioning of the captive power plant, the equipments will be supplied by BHEL’s Hyderabad, Trichy, Ranipet, Bhopal, Jhansi and Electronics Division, Bangalore.

About 17,100 detonators was stolen from a private godown at Karur recently. TN police issues a statewide alert and search operation for them and have already detained 96 persons in connection of this. The godown, which has two chambers, had over 60,000 detonators.The thieves reportedly broke open the lock of one of the chambers and decamped with 17,100 detonators. Police said of the 17,100 detonators stolen, 700 were ordinary detonators and the rest electric ones.

Hopefully, all of them will be accounted for very soon.

Tiruchy-based Grama Vidiyal Microfinance (GVM), a non-banking finance company (NBFC) which started its operations a year back plans to increase its branches from the current 100 to 225.  Speaking about GVM’s expansion plan Devaraj, chairman and managing director, said that GVMFC operates out of 18 districts in Tamil Nadu. By December 2009, the company will open branches in Andhra Pradesh followed by branches in north India.

Daily flights between Kuala Lumpur and Trichy by Air Asia starts from October 2008. Air Asia is entering this market with a cut throat price of Rs.5000 for two way tickets. AirAsia chief executive officer, Tony Fernandez, told Tamil daily Makkal Osai that the flights would provide more opportunities for budget travellers to fly to India.

Great !! Let the competition begin.

Cafe Coffee day is planning to introduce its flag ship Coffee shops in Tier II cities. What better place to introduce them other than in Trichy. We have tourist population,International airport , Sizable tourist population willing to spend more money, Very active and enthusiastic student population and the impeding IT population. It will be great to have more of such hip joints in our city. It is in no way reduce the great coffee you can get in Vasanth Vihaar or Sangam.. ( but still they don’t match the one u used to get in yesteryear’s Padma cafe.) , but it will be cool for tiruchians to chill out in place like Cafe Coffee Day.

I love their environment and pastries along with coffee when I travel between Mysore and Bangalore or while in Coimbatore.

Union health minister A Ramadoss formally admitted on Saturday that some of the auto-disabled syringes sent to Tamil Nadu for their immunization programme, was indeed rusted. The state’s immunization programme faced a fresh setback with the state health minister M R K Panneerselvam suspending the use of all AD syringes, under the brand name BD Solo Shot, used to vaccinate children. Needles of some of the syringes in Trichy had rusted while some of them had dust inside the cylinder.

Drug controller General Dr Surinder Singh told TOI,  Even though chances of AD syringe needles being rusty were remote we found some of the needles which were made of pure stainless steel to be rusted. We have studied the distribution patterns of this batch before samples are picked up. Our probe will see whether the needles were made of substandard material, which caused it to rust, if at all. Officials said India uses 150 million AD syringes in its immunisation programme annually, 80% of which is supplied by Becton Dickinson India. The batch under question in TN were syringes procured from Spain. Ram Sharma, managing director of BD India, said  The AD syringe facility in Fraga, Spain, has been WHO qualified to supply to all immunization programmes. BD SoloShot have been used in governmental immunization programmes the world over. Till date, BD has supplied over 5 billion syringes globally for immunisation through UNICEF.

Hopefully  finger pointing does not let the truth to die as where the issue lies that created this defect and also it presents a caution to manaufcturers if India is being used as a dumping ground for substandard materials.

AU – T is starting a constituent Engg college in Ariyalur from the coming academic year which will function in the Govt Arts College campus for now. Civil Engg, mechanical Engg, Electronics and Communication Engg and Computer Science Engg will be the four disciplines that will be available for the students. Each will have a strength of 60 students. There will be a new campus constructed and the college will be moved there eventually.

Trichy Airport has plans to extend its runway from 8000Ft. to 12500 Ft and work was in the plans to acquire land in the west side of the airport adjacent to the front of the airport. But due to stiff opposition from the public in acquiring the residential lands, the  AAI and the state govt. officials have decided to shelve that plan and acquire the lands on the eastern side of the airport. The only impediment seen there is the uyagundan channel running across and the plans are to lay out a bridge over that to get over the other side. However, providing a diversion to the Tiruchi-Pudukottai National Highway, running close to the airport on the western side, could not be avoided.

AAI officials would now reassess the land requirement on the eastern side and the expansion project would take off, once the fresh proposal was approved by the AAI and the State government.

The wait continues….