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.

Era Infra Engineering has disclosed that it has bagged a contract worth Rs 2.09 billion from Naya Raipur Development Authority (NRDA) for the construction of Head of Department Building at Capitol Complex, Naya Raipur, Chhattisgarh.

Era Infra Engineering is a fully integrated infrastructure conglomerate that specialiges in infrastructure development, pre-engineered building blocks and real estate development.

Recently, the company’s joint venture with KMB has won Rs 129.65 crore contract from the Airports Authority of India (AAI).

The state owned Telecom Company BSNL is all set to float a tender of $9b in the coming month. The company is due set up 93 mn GSM lines to expand its net work, especially in the rural areas of India. Leading telecom equipment manufacturers are vying for the world’s largest telecom equipment tender. The companies in the race are Ericsson, Nokia Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, ZTE and Nortel Networks. These companies have already submitted their bids to get this tender.