This, said Sitharaman, would remove the possibility of unauthorised communication "and consequent harassment", which was a cause of concern for bankers.
Banks will also consider requests from MSMEs for restructuring their stressed standard assets. So far, only 25 per cent of the around 1 million eligible MSMEs have taken benefit of the RBI's special dispensation.
Gig workers are usually spoken of in the context of the sharing economy, like Uber, Ola drivers, delivery persons for Zomato and Swiggy and so on. This is the first time such workers will be covered under India's social security law.
Only 48.3 per cent of the rural households used LPG, while the figures were much higher in urban areas at 86.6 per cent, according to a NSO report.
The government's decision to release the reports comes two days after over 200 scholars from across the globe issued a statement demanding release of all withheld reports produced by the NSO, including the household consumer expenditure survey that was junked.
Experts said a dip in consumption expenditure indicated an increasing prevalence of poverty in the country.
Sitharaman said the Bill has proposed giving a legal framework for fixed-term employment through which contract workers serving a fixed-tenure will get equal statutory social security benefits as regular workers in the same unit.
The findings of the report showed consumer spending falling for the first time in over four decades in 2017-18. The government has, however, termed it a "draft" report, reports Somesh Jha.
In the draft rules, among 681 listed professions, armed security guards, supervisors, surveyors, and carpenters (class I) are proposed to be treated as highly skilled professionals; electricians, tailors and drivers are skilled; cooks and cobblers as semi-skilled and dairy coolies, office peons and sweepers as unskilled.
After taking benefit of the scheme, jobs increased by around 11 mn in establishments that took loans.
Part of the dues has been pending since 1995-96 - the inception year of the Employees' Pension Scheme administered by the EPFO. The Centre also owes the EPFO more than Rs 1,000 crore towards the minimum pension scheme it had notified in September 2014.
The government would be ironing out issues related to the controversial 'bail-in' clause in the earlier Bill, explore hiking the deposit insurance cover of customers, and decide whether the resolution framework should apply to public sector banks.
PSBs have been requested to reach out to MSMEs to provide bill discounting to them against their dues since they suffer the most from shortage of cash.
According to draft Code on Social Security, 2019, gig and platform workers will be entitled to life and disability cover, health and maternity benefits, among others.
PSB chiefs tried to argue that liquidity is in surplus in the system and the problem was related to lack of demand in the economy, instead of banks' reluctance to lend, but 'the FM said it is a perception issue that loan is not available, which we need to dispel,', reports Somesh Jha.
The NDA government will be following the footsteps of its predecessor, the UPA, which had introduced the concept of "loan mela" to boost credit by directing banks to lend to people through public meetings.
In the latest draft of the Code on Social Security Bill, 2019, the government has decided to stick to the current thresholds for providing social security benefits to workers by industry.
The government is set to ask PSBs to expeditiously introduce repo-rate linked products "to step up affordable credit".
The government wants to reduce the rate of contribution - part of the employee's share - for a class of workers depending upon age, income or gender, without changing the contribution from the employer's share.
Under the proposed mechanism, the finance ministry has said banks will notify customers when someone tries to deposit money in their accounts, a government official said.
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