The best thing about what the capital's power-circles now term the Jash-Yash portfolio switch is an accompanying move: the Department of Company Affairs (DCA) now reports to the Finance Minister. That means Jaswant Singh has it within his means to bring about significant changes in the way companies are run and reform the scam-tainted financial markets. If the DCA's recent activism is any indication, it seems to have rediscovered its teeth under a new master.

Powers, the DCA has plenty: it can 'search and seize'; under Section 209A of the Companies Act of 1956, the Registrar of Companies and field officers of the department can inspect the books of accounts and other records of companies; and it can audit auditors to ensure that they do what is expected of them. Only, all these powers didn't exactly help the DCA cover itself with glory in its efforts to detect frauds and punish erring companies. In 2000-01, the department investigated a mere 221 companies; over 580,000 fall under its jurisdiction. And between April and December 2001, it embarked on no new investigation.

All that has changed under Singh: the DCA was quick to get into the Xerox Modicorp mess (the office automation major made improper payments in an effort to generate sales) and has sought a clarification from Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited on its decision to invest Rs 1,200 crore into the loss-making Tata Teleservices, money that is to come out of its reserves.

The minister has also asked the department to re-engineer its internals using technology. ''This will link the various offices of the roc (Registrar of Companies) and bring procedural simplicity to filings, and make surveillance easier,'' says a senior DCA official. There's more affirmative action in the pipeline: stronger regulations for companies delisting from the exchanges to protect the interests of minority shareholders; more stringent rules for co-operative societies that have been at the centre of several controversies in the past two years; and a regulation that could make it mandatory for companies to change auditors every three (or five) years, an effort to prevent the kind of accounting scams that seem endemic in the US.

Providence has played an important role in giving the DCA its new, mean image. The department came out with a report on its investigations into companies associated with the 2001 stockmarket scam (and a few assorted others) in the last week of June; the department was moved from the purview of the Ministry of Law to the Ministry of Finance on July 1. Some credit for the DCA's activism, then-especially its much-publicised investigations into companies such as Satyam Computer and Ranbaxy-should go to the former Minister of Law, Justice, and Company Affairs, Arun Jaitely. Still, as a famous brewer once said, "it doesn't matter who gets the credit as long as the work gets done". And the DCA sure has enough to do.

-Ashish Gupta

FARE DEAL
And Icarus Fell
Airlines find some takers for their lower-than-low fares, but riders on the promotional tariffs dampen things some.

Sahara Airlines: Unlike the team it sponsors, the Sahara Group's airline business is flying high

The airports should have looked like New Delhi Railway station, Mumbai's Victoria Terminus, and Chennai's Central Station do before long-distance trains pull out. After all, aren't airfares on the Mumbai-Delhi route, (Rs 3,920) not far away from what one would pay for a second class (air-conditioned) railway ticket (Rs 1,775), and on the Delhi-Chennai route, Rs 3,293, as compared to Rs 2,279 for a second class (air-conditioned) railway ticket? Still, the airports don't look crowded, and it has been almost a fortnight since the reduced fares came into effect (they were announced over a month back).

So, has the gambit to improve the plane-load factor from a sluggish 55-60 per cent failed? Not quite, says Saroj Datta, Executive Director, Jet Airways. ''We have received an encouraging response to our Everyone Can Fly scheme; we have seen over a 75 per cent utilisation of the seats we are making available across our system.''

Travel agents are singing a different tune. Sharukh Kapadia of Mumbai-based Magnum Travels says riders like the fact that one has to book 21 days in advance, and the heavy penalty on cancellations have resulted in poor offtake. ''Call it a quirk, but Indians don't like to book a month in advance,'' adds Gus Barretto of Mercury Travels. If the two agents are right, it would mean the anticipated shift from rail to air hasn't happened: most train passengers book tickets a month in advance and should have no problems with the 21-day rider. The airlines themselves are keeping their fingers crossed. The surprise package has been Sahara's Sixer in the Air, six one-way tickets to any destination for Rs 25,000. With no riders, gushes Barretto, Mercury has sold three times the number of tickets in the April-July quarter as compared to last year. That says a thing or two about riders.

-Abir Pal

MONEY QUOTIENT
Poor, Did You Say?
A new study has private bankers drooling over India's potential high net worth individuals.

Did you know that last year there were some 7.1 million people in this world with net worth in excess of $1 million? Or that of these 1.73 million were in Asia-Pacific? Equally revealing should be the fact that a bare 1 lakh of them are in India (40,000) and China-otherwise home to a third of the world's population. If you thought these numbers from the Cap Gemini E&Y/Merrill Lynch World Wealth Report 2002 would send the nascent private banking industry in India packing, think again. Starry-eyed P-bankers are actually digging their heels in.

Here's why: while the high net worth individuals (HNWI) in India make up a minuscule 0.004 per cent of the population, the economy is still growing. If the number of HNWIs grew in tandem with the economy to the benchmark level of 0.05 per cent to achieve developed economy status, there would be-according to Asian Banker estimates-nearly 4.5 million HNWIs in India (China would still have more at 6.5 million).

Private banking in India is young, with most of the players having launched their offerings less than two years ago. And, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, a majority of the wealth managers seem to manage between 21 and 40 per cent of their client's wallet. But in another three years, most private bankers expect more sophisticated clients to put the industry on a new growth trajectory.

-Roshni Jayakar