Moneymakers
AIR POWER: Sita Enterprises Ltd, a Mumbai-based export and consultancy company, is all set to breeze into the wind and hydel power sector. The company is planning to construct a hydel power project with a generating capacity of four MW costing around Rs four crore. According to AshokTulsian, managing director of the company, sites had been identified for setting up the hydel project. A wind farm in Madhya Pradesh is also being planned with the help of the Indian Renewable Energy Development Authority. The total investment made by the company is likely to be more than Rs 15 crore.
PREMIUM PACKAGE: Viking, a newsoftware package, developed by the Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies Ltd will usher in the concept of'borderless banking' in the country. Billed as India's first internet application in the banking industry, it can be used even for intranet purposes. A bank can then be linked with any number of its branches across the country. The same application can run on a single PC, an intranet or on the Internet. Viking also provides options for building high quality, multi-media rich applications.
GREEN AID: Industries across Europe using polluting coal-firedboilers will now have access to low-cost, anti- pollution systems, thanks to a US $50 million agreement between Nalco Fuel Tech of the US and TRC Companies of eastern Europe. Fuel Tech would provide both financial and technical aid for installing air pollution control systems for outdated and polluting coal-fired boilers. Pollutants like sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide can be reduced by the system. The low cost technology would be used in power companies in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.
HANDY DETECTOR: Statsite, a palm-sized electronic device, developed by biochemists at GDS Technologies Inc, Elkhart, Indiana, US, promises to make It easy to perform emergency blood tests in minutes, It isa compact, computerised, portable, highprecision auto-analyser, according to Surendra K Gupta, president of GDS, Each test costs around Rs 45. StatSite comes with a disposable test card and a computer printer port, which when attached to a printer, can provide print-outs of the results. Besides, it can store upto 60 test results.
SWIFT LINKS: A new hub earth station coming up in Mumbai will give its customers an extra edge in communication services- Costing Rs 15 crore, the earth station will be set up by the Madras-based Hughes Escorts Communications Ltd- The new earth station will be handling 700 to 800 VSATs (very small aperture terminals). The VSATs are seen as a better alternative to the terrestrial telephone system as they have proved to be more reliable and can provide high speed data and voice communication facilities.
COMBINED INCENTIVE: The race for environment-friendly cars is gaining momentum. A dualmode AX prototype, called Vetela, has been launched by Renaultin Toulouse, France. The car is powered by a dual-mode engine that combines the benefits of an electric and a heat engjne. The dualmode engine promises to lower pollution and a mileage equivalent to that offered by liquid fuel. The car can cover a distance of 30 km running at 60 km per hour. In other words, it consumes less thafto.2 KW /km energy. The electric engine is controlled by a powerful 180 volt power source.