More budgetary support needed for Rlys: Railway minister Nitish Kumar said on Wednesday that enhanced budgetary support to the ministry would help in improvingpassenger amenities besides modernisation and expansion programmes for the rail network. While the ministry has been seeking increased budgetary support from time to time, railwaymen should also ponder over wide-ranging issues relating to improvement of rail services, he said, inaugurating a conference hall built in the memory of labour leader T N Bajpai in New Delhi. The minister informed that Railways gave a dividend of Rs 1,600 crore to the government this year against a budgetary support of Rs 2,200 crore. Dividend amount is likely to surpass the budgetary support very soon, he said.

Kerala's exclusion from express highway challenged: A writ petition challenging the exclusion of Kerala from the proposed 12,470 km long express highway project has been admitted by the Kerala high court. The petition, filed by the Kochi-based `Niyamavedi' sought a direction to the Centre, National Highways Authority of India and the state government to include territories of Kerala in the proposed express highwayproject as per the original proposal. The petition alleged that exclusion of the state was arbitrary, mala fide and was due to political reasons. In the original proposal of the project envisaging two six-lane highways -- one connecting Kanyakumari and Srinagar and the other linking Silchar in Assam and Porbundhar in Gujarat at a cost of about Rs 60,000 crore -- Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Palakkad had been included, according to the petitioner. However Kerala figured nowhere in the tender notification of the project published by the National Highways Authority recently.

National Housing Bank Act to be amended, says minister: The National Housing Bank Act is likely to be amended soon to minimise loss to housing finance institutions, Union urban affairs minister Ram Jethmalani said on Wednesday. The amendment will be made through an Ordinance which will provide for speedy foreclosure scheme to cut down loss to housing finance institutions on account of defaults in loan recovery, he said,inaugurating the 20th international conference of non-resident Indians in New Delhi. The minister said a draft of the proposed Ordinance would be discussed at the next meeting of the Union cabinet. Jethmalani assured NRIs that he would take up with the government their request for more representation in advisory and consultative bodies to take care of their interest in the country.

Himachal to cancel MOU with Ballarpur Inds for hydel project: Himachal Pradesh government has decided to serve a notice cancelling the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed with Ballarpur Industries for execution of 10 mw Uhl stage-III hydel project in Mandi district. The decision to cancel the MOU, signed on August 22 1997 followed a high-level meeting held in Simla on Wednesday under the chairmanship of chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and attended by the speaker, Vidhan Sabha, Thakur Gulab Singh and chief secretary A K Goswami, who is also the chairman of the state electricity board. It was stressed in the meetingthat Ballarpur Industries which was to start work within a year according to the agreement had failed to do so. This had resulted in a delay in the execution of the project and so it should be entrusted either to the state electricity board or to NHPC or any other agency which could start work on this project at the earliest.

Assocham seeks FIs on lines of SIDBI: The Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Assocham) has suggested the creation of financial institutions on the lines of SIDBI and NABARD to enable traders to raise capital with built-in insurance and risk-hedging measures in view of increased competition from an array of new products in the market.