CNBC-TV18 & ICICI Bank Emerging India Awards felicitates India’s most promising SMEs for 2005

People Interactive India Pvt.Ltd and Arch Pharmalabs Ltd., Mumbai walk away with awards in the ICE & ITES and Pharma & Chemicals categories respectively

Mumbai, May 08, 2006: CNBC-TV18, India’s No 1 business medium, along with ICICI Bank, one of India’s largest banks and CRISIL, India’s premier credit rating agency, together with tradeindia.com, Canon, Air India and Deepak Fasteners Ltd, today announced the winners of the CNBC-TV18 ‘Emerging India Awards’ – a pioneering initiative to recognize the contribution of Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) towards the growth of the Indian economy.

The CNBC-TV18 ‘Emerging India Awards’ initiative aims at recognizing the most sustainable Value Creators among SMEs in the country. Indian SMEs with a maximum net worth of Rs 75 crore, were eligible for entry to the CNBC-TV18 ‘Emerging India Awards’, India largest recognition platform.

CNBC-TV18 and ICICI Bank’s Emerging India Series is India’s first and only platform for recognizing and promoting India’s small and medium enterprises. The CNBC-TV18 and ICICI Bank Emerging India Initiative is a series of forums that have culminated into the Emerging India Awards, which was introduced last year.

The series, which has returned this year with a fresh new line up of Emerging India forums, will tour the country once again.

The Emerging India Awards for 2005 posted a record number of entries, a total of 35,000. This is an achievement no recognition platform prior to this has been able to claim in India. With the maximum number of entries received from the state of Maharashtra, it was no surpsise when it walked away with 2 awards in the categories of ICE & ITES and Pharma & Chemicals. Mr Ajit Kamath, MD, Arch Pharmalabs accepted the Emerging India Award for Pharma and Chemicals category while Mr Anupam Mittal, MD, People Interactive Ltd accepted the Emerging India Award for ICE and ITES.

Maharshtra has had a stellar performance in the SME sector. The economic reforms brought about the end of control regimes, de-licensing and de-reservation of industries ensured that the small and mediun enterprises were allowed to grow. Statistically the SME’s make up over 90 percent of the Indian economy and provide employment to a robust 70 per cent of the India working population.

Maharashtra strengths lie in the incentives it offers for the development of Small Scale industries. Capital incentives, Interest Subsidy to new textile, hosiery and knitwear units, classification of talukas/areas, exemption from Sales Tax for sectors like Khadi & Village Industries, New Industrial Townships, the concept of which has been pioneered by Maharashtra as well as Special Economic Zones, Specialized Industrial Areas for sectors like IT, chemicals and leather etc. this is just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of infrastructure too the state of Maharashtra ranks high, power generation is the highest here at 14,000MW as well as a well spread out network of roads and railways with two international seaports and one international airport besides four domestic airports in operation. Two international airports at Navi Mumbai and Pune, and an international passenger and cargo hub at Nagpur are in pipeline. The state also has many of the strongest educational and HRD institutions in the country. Maharashtra boasts of higher literacy rate at 75 percent than most other states. It has the highest number of patents field in the State, setting the pace for innovation in the country, a well diversified and highly productive industrial base with positive work culture

Other states too proved their mettle. The SMEs who won the CNBC-TV18 ‘Emerging India Awards’ for the year 2005 were:

Suprajit Engineering Ltd, Bangalore is the overall Small and Medium Enterprise of the Year
Bhagwati Banquets & Hotels Ltd, Ahmedabad is the Most Promising Small Enterprise of the Y ear.

Speaking on the landmark achievement of receiving 35,000 nominations for the award, Mr. K. V. Kamath, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank, said “The future for Indian SMEs looks bright across all Industry sectors. Policy initiatives can take the economy growth rate to a much higher level than 8.1%. To take advantage of this growth, it is important for the SMEs to make changes to consolidate and modernize their businesses, adopt best practices and bring in enhanced transparency - the Emerging India Awards initiative emphasizes these aspects and recognizes the companies that epitomize them.”

Speaking on this initiative Mr .Haresh Chawla-CEO-CNBC-TV18 said ”In its second year, the Emerging India Awards has become not just the benchmark for recognizing the best performing enterprises from the SME space but it has also emerged as India's (and one of the world's) largest business awards! A true testimony to the power of the SME story. We are extremely proud to partner with ICICI Bank and CRISIL in this initiative. What is also extremely heartening that SMEs are raring to go and willing to take on challenges & opportunities thrown in by globalization! We will continue to take up the SME cause at the TV18 network ”

Evaluation Process

The Emerging India Initiative was conceptualised to reward entrepreneurship and innovation in addition to business and financial performance. The evaluation process was a rigorous 8 stage program designed to select the best, sustainable value creator amongst the small and medium enterprises. CRISIL, India’s premier credit ratings agency was called upon to execute the evaluation process.

The first round of selection for the CNBC-TV18 ‘Emerging India Awards’ involved a review of Financial Statements of the nominees by CRISIL. The evaluation was based on the performance of the company over the last four years to ensure consistency of performance.

During the second round of the screening, 25 short-listed entities in each category provided detailed information on:

- Audited financial statements, verification from lead banker, any relevant references from industry associations/ key large clients

- Comprehensive write-up on business

- Future plans and strategies

- Management background, experience and track record

- Brief write-up and summarized financial performance on affiliate / group companies

CRISIL also used the following factors to evaluate the nominated SME’s:

- Market position, competitive strengths

- Business strategy, growth plans and future prospects

- Management vision, quality, experience and depth

The second round of screening resulted in the shortlisting of 3 entities per category. Each of the 3 shortlisted entries made a final round of offsite presentations about their respective businesses to a jury of independent experts, comprising of BVR Subbu, President, Hyundai Motor India Ltd., Arun Nanda, M&M, ED, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, DD Rathi, CFO, Grasim, Dilip Choksi, India head, Deloitte and Nilesh Patel , MD, Heinz The jury selected the winners in each category after evaluating the SME’s overall business, financial and management strengths and their ability for sustainable value creation for key stakeholders.

Mr R Ravimohan, Managing Director & Chief Executive Director, CRISIL added, “The vital role played by SMEs has so far gone largely unnoticed. We are delighted to be a part of this initiative which acknowledges and celebrates the best-performing SMEs"

About CNBC-TV18:

CNBC-TVI8 is India's No.1 business medium. CNBC Asia Pacific holds a strategic equity stake in the Indian registered broadcaster; Television 18. CNBC-TV18 is the undisputed leader in the business. The channel's benchmark coverage extends from corporate news, financial markets coverage, expert perspective on investing and management to industry verticals and beyond. CNBC-TV18 has been constantly experimenting with new genres of programming that helps make business more relevant to different constituencies across India. CNBC-TV18 is currently available in over 18 million households in India.

About ICICI Bank
ICICI Bank, India’s second largest bank, provides a broad spectrum of financial services to individuals and companies. ICICI Bank today services a growing customer base of more than 10 million customer accounts through a multi-channel access network including over 480 branches and extension counters, over 1,800 ATMs and telephone, mobile and Internet banking (www.icicibank.com).

SME banking is a high growth area for ICICI Bank. ICICI Bank’s Small Enterprises Group is focused on providing complete banking solutions to SMEs including term loans, working capital, trade finance and transaction banking services. These services are provided by a dedicated team of over 500 professionals spread across 100 cites. The Bank leverages its network of over 480 interconnected branches and strong technology platform to provide state-of-the-art customized banking solutions to the SMEs. Some of its widely accepted products in the SME space are the Roaming Current Account which provides the convenience of anytime -anywhere banking and the Channel Finance facilities for meeting the financing needs of the channel partners of its corporate customers

ICICI Bank has pioneered innovative credit-evaluation techniques, which goes beyond just the evaluation of SME firm’s financials and involves deep understanding of the SME business and the industry. This approach has substantially improved turnaround time for its customers. ICICI Bank’s SME business has grown substantially over the past few years.

About CRISIL

CRISIL is India’s leading Ratings, Financial News, Risk & Policy Advisory company. CRISIL leverages its core strengths of credibility and analytical rigour to deliver opinions and solutions that help clients mitigate and manage their business and financial risks, make markets function better, and help shape public policy. CRISIL supports these through its unique width of product and service offerings.

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