Wipro Infotech, the peripherals manufacturing subsidiary of Wipro, has opened its second manufacturing unit at Kotdwar in Uttarakhand.

Covering 5.8 acres of land at the foothills of the Himalayas, the proposed unit will produce servers, storage, notebooks, desktops and allied IT electronics products.

According to the source, the plant is equipped with a manufacturing capacity of approximately 1000 machines a day.

The company however did not divulge the investment in this project.

Bharti Airtel has launched the ‘Airtel Innovation Fund’ on Thursday. The fund, worth Rs. 200 crore is geared to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in the field of telecommunications. Bharti Airtel is a first company in the telecommunication sector to set up such a fund.

The Chairman and Managing Director of Airtel, Sunil Mittal said that his company would like to help entrepreneurs with a vision and innovative ideas to set up businesses. He expressed hope that the move of his company would yield good results for the entrepreneurs of India.

Chennai-based direct-to-home service provider Sun Direct has made entry into the northern region by rolling out its services in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir.

Besides, the company also disclosed its plans to spend Rs 150 crore for expanding its subscriber base to 3 million by the end of this fiscal.

“The launch in the northern region is part of our steps towards expansion plans,” Sun Direct Chief Operating Officer, Mr Tony D'silva said here on Friday.

As a prefatory offer, Sun Direct is presenting a basic package of over 130-plus channels at a price of Rs 999 for 10 months subscription along with free dish and set top box and Rs 1,000 towards installation charges.

A deal has been signed between the state run Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) private enterprise Shree Renuka Sugars Ltd, to construct a sugar plant with the facilities to produce ethanol in the state of Maharashtra..

The stock was informed by the companies through separate statements that they have entered into a JV to set up the unit.

Managing Director, Narendra Murukumbi annonced,“It would be an integrated sugar and ethanol plant where the ethanol capacity would be 240 kilo litres per day and a co-generation power capacity of 30 mega watts.” He further informed that the by-product would be sugar whereas ethanol would be the main product.

India’s largest manganese alloy producer Maithan Alloy Ltd has announced that the company envisages to pump Rs350 crore for introducing two greenfield manganese alloy plants to meet the growing demand from global steel firms.

Commenting on the plans, Mr. S C Agarwalla, Managing Director of Maithan Alloy, remarked, “We are installing a plant in Meghalaya and one in Andhra Pradesh. The total combined capacity of the two plants would be 1.38 lakh tonnes per annum.”

The company will invest Rs 80 crore in Meghalaya plant, with production capacity of 28,000 tonne  per annum, while 1.2 lakh tonne per annum Andhra Pradesh unit will entail an investment of Rs 275 crore.