The Indian Banks' Association recently mooted a proposal for a centralised admission test for commercial banks in the country.
The current employee strength of all state-run banks is about 672,000.
Public sector banks have performed better than their private sector counterparts in customer service.
Centre likely to miss collection target for '09-10
The long wait for a symbol of the rupee is expected to end by March next year. A committee headed by Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Usha Thorat has shortlisted five symbols from 4,000 entries for a public competition to select a design for the symbol.
The government is likely to ease the incidence of minimum alternate tax, or MAT, on infrastructure companies.
The Centre has turned down the proposal of the empowered group of state finance ministers to keep alcohol out of goods and services tax.
Businesses with more than Rs 10 lakh turnover may end up paying the central goods and services tax, with the Centre not agreeing to states' suggestion of keeping the threshold at Rs 1.5 crore.
Outlets of telecom companies such as Airtel and Vodafone may soon double as bank kiosks for financial services like funds transfer or bill payment, especially in parts of the country where there are very few banks or none at all.
The finance ministry is likely to drop the proposal to tax religious trusts. The proposal formed part of the direct taxes code and had raised eyebrows both within and outside the finance ministry. Under Section 10 (23C) of the Income Tax Act, any trust or institution that works wholly for public religious and charitable purposes and is approved by the chief commissioner or director general, is tax exempt.
The government has said that public sector banks have asked for much more capital than it can give.
Recently, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had assured industry that the government was open to re-examining proposals in seven key areas.
In addition, bankers also told Business Standard that they did not expect the central bank to hike policy rates or the cash reserve ratio in the third quarter review scheduled for October 27 as inflation was not rising fast though inflationary expectations were there.
The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority will consider a proposal to manage the pension funds of companies at its board meeting on Wednesday, extending its role from being manager of individual pension plans.
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