New Delhi Finding around a dozen cement companies guilty of indulging in price cartalisation, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) is said to have slapped a penalty of R3,000 crore on them. The penalty amounts to 8% of the three years’ average turnover of these 11 companies, sources said.

The CCI had not put up the order on its website at the time of filing this report. According to agency reports, the CCI found the 11 companies in violation of Section 3 and 4 of the competition laws.

A daylong drama over an alleged Rs 10.6 lakh-crore scam in coal allocation took a new twist on Thursday, with Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai coming to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's rescue by playing down the findings of his own office.

A report published in The Times of India on Thursday quoted a CAG draft report on the ‘Performance Audit of Coal Block and Allocations’ as having found “undue benefit” extended to companies by allotting them 155 coal acreages without auction between 2004 and 2009.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, presenting the 2012 budget on Friday said the growth of the Indian economy, estimated at 6.9 per cent during this fiscal year, was “disappointing”.

“The global crisis has affected us. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to grow at 6.9 per cent in 2011-12, after having grown at 8.4 per cent in each of the two preceding years,” the finance minister said at the beginning of his seventh budget presentation in the Lok Sabha.

Guwahati, March 2: Cement companies operating from the state have come under the scanner over the alleged unreasonable price hike recently, compelling Dispur to commit in the state Assembly to take

Three leading cement companies — Gujarat Ambuja, ACC and Jaypee company — owning mega cement manufacturing plants in Himachal Pradesh on Thursday slashed their prices by half.

New Delhi After a short period of lenience in allowing coal mining in “no-go” forest areas, the environment ministry has decided to impose stringent penalties on violators.