In a significant relaxation of import restrictions on a host of consumer goods and office equipment items, the Government today moved as many as 92 items from the restricted list to the SIL (Special Import Licence) route and shifted as many as 69 items from SIL to the free list. Announcing this at a news conference here, the Commerce Minister, Mr. B.B. Ramaiah, said that the items which were no longer in the restricted list and could be imported by obtaining a licence include colour television sets of less than 14 inches, picture tubes, commercial dishwashers, airconditioners including ACs for cars, a whole range of cosmetics and perfume items including lipstick, etc.

Banks given powers to classify borrowals

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has given banks the freedom to independently classify borrowal accounts according to its own record of recovery and other aspects bearing on the “recoverability” of advances in consortium advances. According to the RBI’s norms on consortium advances, if any bank considers an advance as a non-performing asset (NPA), all the other member banks, including the leader of the consortium, have to treat the advances granted by them as an NPA.

‘Amul’ may buy Vadilal plant

The stage has been set for the sale of Vigil Processed Food, the Tarapore plant of Vadilal Industries , the Ahmedabad-based owners of the Vadilal brand of ice-cream, one of the popular brands in western India. The shortlisted buyers include Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation, Brooke Bond Lipton India and Nestle. Mr. Rajesh Gandhi, MD, VIL, said negotiations had reached the final stages but it would be premature to say who would get the plant.