Deccan Aviation, India's largest helicopter charter company, has come out of the South and launched operations from Tuesday from Delhi. The company, which pioneered several applications of helicopter services in the country including heli-tourism from bases in Bangalore and Hyderabad, has six Bell choppers and intends to take foreign tourists on all expense paid heli-tours to the Himalayas, Rajasthan and Agra from Delhi. Civil aviation minister Ananth Kumar, commerce minister Ramakrishna Hegde and US ambassador Richard Celeste attended the launch ceremony and the maiden flight from Safdarjang airport.

Rajasthan may review decision on IBRD-funded road projects

The Rajasthan government is giving second thoughts to the Rs 2500-crore World Bank project for upgrading and strengthening the state highways. The total length of the state highways to be covered was to be 1500 km. Officials told The Financial Express that the high-level committee,headed by the state finance minister Chandan Mal Baid, has raised some basic issues in regard to the need of the project. The very concept of the project is now being questioned in the government. The committee is of the view that the state should have the highways to suit its requirement and the World Bank standards would not be of any use. Some members of the committee have also opposed the conditionalities of the World Bank.

TotalFina eyes Africa oil bonanza along with Elf

The Franco-Belgian oil group TotalFina is in line to lay its hands on Elf Aquitaine's coveted oil and gas reserves in Africa, where the former state-owned oil giant has a long and complex history of involvement in local politics. If its bid launched on Monday succeeds, TotalFina would inherit a bonanza of promising discoveries made by Elf mainly in the Gulf of Guinea. A TotalFina/Elf group would reinforce Elf Aquitaine's current position as Africa's leading oil producer with a combined production of more than 600,000 barrels aday and proven reserves O F gas and oil of 2.67 billion barrels. Over the past three years, Elf has multiplied discoveries in its African fields,particularly offshore in the Gulf of Guinea. Its reserves both proven and potenti al were estimated at some four billion barrels at the beginning of 1999. These reserves are located mainly in deep waters off Angola, in fields called Girassol, Dalia or Rosa. Other oil "majors" are keen to get a foothold in this zone.