The agriculture ministry, in the last few weeks, issued guidelines and letters to states to ensure agriculture and food products reach consumers in a timely manner, while farmers don't have to come to the mandis to sell them.
'We will not compromise on it. We will not make any deferred payments or cuts.'
Even with the Rs 20,000 crore distributed among states, it will still be a fraction of what they have been demanding in financial support and clearance of pending dues.
IMD has said the temperature in April-June across most parts in India is expected to be 0.5-1 degrees Celsius warmer than normal. However, doctors and scientists say they haven't found any direct correlation between the speed of COVID-19 spread and warm weather.
This brings its tax treatment on par with the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund.
'It is unclear whether clothing or home items qualify as essential items. A lot of professionals are working from home, and they need electronics for their productivity. Does this qualify as essential?'
While the meetings on Friday were preliminary discussions, it is learnt that sectors like tourism; hospitality; aviation; micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs); and livestock have sought deferring loan repayments and temporary tax holidays in specific cases to help them tide over the steep fall in economic activity.
The India meteorological department has stated that day temperatures are likely to be above normal by 0.5 degree Celsius, reports Sanjeeb Mukherjee.
To address the supply crunch, CII has suggested leveraging the existing excess capacity in the Indian industry; rolling back import duty hike to look for alternative sources of imports; expanding credit to manufacturing units with quick loan sanctions, and one-time emergency waiver of non-performing asset regulations for three months.
India is expected to harvest 291.95 mt of foodgrain in 2019-20
The scheme offers waiver of interest, penalty, and prosecution for settling tax disputes.
'If you do quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, someone earning Rs 10 lakh can get a benefit of anywhere between Rs 35,000 and Rs 45,000, even if s/he is availing exemptions.' 'A large proportion of people do not avail full exemptions as they don't have money to invest in those schemes.'
'There are some encouraging signs.' 'Notice that we have not said 7%-plus, we are keeping it at 6% to 6.5%.'
This is the highest in the past five years and almost 24 per cent more than last year.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has brought down the budgetary allocation for the fertiliser subsidy for FY21 to Rs 71,309 crore, from the RE of Rs 79,998 crore for FY20, while increasing food subsidy to FCI through "ways and means advance" to Rs 50,000 crore for FY21, from Rs 36,000 crore in RE for FY20, and under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) to Rs 77,982 crore, from Rs 75,000 crore.
The bulk of states' revenue comes from the devolution from the Centre's divisible tax pool, GST, VAT on petroleum, and excise duty on alcohol.
DDT is levied on dividends that a company pays its shareholders out of its profits. It is currently charged at the rate of 20.55 per cent, including a surcharge and education cess. Government may instead tax the shareholders receiving dividends, in a bid to help improve investor sentiment by addressing the multiplicity of taxes and bring down the effective tax rates for companies.
A robust dispute settlement system would help the government unlock tax revenues, and also aid ease of doing business.
While rising food inflation is a matter of grave concern for a significant chunk of the population and for policy makers as well, it marks a turnaround in the fortunes of the farmer, reports Sanjeeb Mukherjee.
The instruction is that audit of large units be completed within seven working days, of medium units in five working days and of small ones in three.
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