Free provision of food, cash transfers, and jobs in villages see enhanced flow of funds despite a precipitous fall in revenue. Till May, defence spend was nearly 30 per cent less than the previous year.
Tuesday's bridge collapse once again puts the spotlight on the city's urban infrastructure and a dire need for its development.
IOA Finance Committee chairman Khanna defends decision on Tokyo Games hotel bookings for Tokyo Games, says can't authorise expenditure in absence of approval from President or Secretary General. Indian Weightlifting Federation secretary general Sahdev Yadav resigned as member of the finance committee, saying he was doing so "to maintain self-respect".
The decision to grant 10 per cent EWS quota in admissions will not impact the availability of seats for the general and reserved categories as 2,13,766 additional seats will be added to those already existing in higher educational institutions, the Centre Tuesday told the Supreme Court while defending the 103rd constitution amendment.
A 1985-batch IAS officer with a reputation for industriousness, Murmu is currently special secretary in the revenue department.
Indian billionaires saw their combined fortunes more than double during the COVID-19 pandemic, and their count shot up by 39 per cent to 142, while the wealth of the ten richest is enough to fund school and higher education of children in the country for 25 years, a new study showed on Monday. In its annual inequality survey released on the first day of the World Economic Forum's online Davos Agenda summit, Oxfam India further said that an additional one per cent tax on the richest 10 per cent can provide the country with nearly 17.7 lakh extra oxygen cylinders, while a similar wealth tax on the 98 richest billionaire families would finance Ayushman Bharat, the world's largest health insurance scheme, for more than seven years. The COVID-19 pandemic saw a huge rush for oxygen cylinders and insurance claims during the second wave last year.
The government on October 12 announced the LTC cash voucher scheme under which central government employees can purchase any goods or services with GST rate of 12 per cent or above to avail the benefit.
The government will seek Parliament's approval for Rs 37,000-crore additional spending on infrastructure development in the second batch of supplementary demands for grant. Earlier this month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced additional budget of Rs 25,000 crore as capital expenditure (capex) on roads, defence, water supply, urban development and domestically produced capital equipment. Besides, the central government approved issuance of a special interest-free 50-year loan to states of Rs 12,000 crore for infrastructure development.
No longer Bengal's finance minister, Amit Mitra, Mamata's principal chief advisor, will still advise and aid the 'chief minister and finance department on all matters relating to management of state finance', represent the 'state government in national and international events/meetings/committees' and examine 'important proposals/files and policy issues relating to financial matters referred to him for advice/views'.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asserted that she had last year inaugurated the second campus of the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute which Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated to the nation on Friday.
'Gift-giving' - from free dinners and drug samples to promotional merchandise - seems to be driving drugmakers' marketing - a marketing prescription deeply entrenched in the industry. This is a well-oiled racket that sees pharmaceutical (pharma) companies 'gifting' doctors to push their respective drugs under the guise of marketing. But is there a cure in sight to end this unhealthy alliance? The recent controversy following the income-tax raids on Bengaluru-based drugmaker Micro Labs, makers of popular paracetamol brand Dolo-650, has brought this to the fore, again.
The draft bill provides for capital punishment for crimes against women and children, specifies deadline of 30 days to complete the probe since the day the complaint in such cases is lodged and puts the onus on social media platforms as well as internet provider companies to share the data for police investigation.
Batting for holding of simultaneous elections in the country, a parliamentary committee on Tuesday said this will reduce the burden on the exchequer, expenditure of political parties and also ensure that human resources are optimally utilised.
Maintaining a rapid pace of the vaccination drive and quickly bridging healthcare infrastructure gaps across both urban and rural areas would emerge as the most sustainable stimulus for durable recovery of the Indian economy, says a report by the department of economic affairs.
'It is just an excuse to say that the Centre has run out of money.' 'Pruning these schemes would mean hard time for the people of India.'
At $37 per dose, the Pfizer vaccine is much more expensive compared to $3 per dose for the Covishield.
The government will transfer about Rs 16,000 crore of unpaid fuel bills and other pending dues that Air India owes to suppliers, to a special purpose vehicle before handing over the loss-making airline to the Tata Group, a senior official said. Air India Assets Holding Ltd (AIAHL), which will hold non-core assets of Air India such as land and building, will also be saddled with 75 per cent of the airline's debt that the Tata Group is not taking over. Besides the debt, the excess liability going to AIAHL comprises unpaid fuel bills to oil companies, airport operators and vendors, said Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Secretary to the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management - the department running the privatisation programme of the government.
The scheme is aimed at slashing the salary and pension bills of the three services, which have been increasing rapidly.
Shankar Prajapati, a 57-year-old potter in Dharavi, has given up hope of getting a bigger house for his family. He lives cheek by jowl in a hutment measuring 200 square (sq.) feet (ft) in the nondescript shanty town. "We have surrendered to our fate. We cannot wait forever for better accommodation. "Perhaps we are not meant to dream big," despairs Prajapati. Raju Korde, president, Dharavi Redevelopment Committee, and a local resident, agrees with Prajapati.
Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia vacates his post on November 30 and Expenditure Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha, the second seniormost bureaucrat in the finance ministry, retires on January 31, the day before Jaitley presents the 2019-20 interim budget.
But it is disappointing to note that Sitharaman's third Union Budget continues to promote a few problematic ideas, observes A K Bhattacharya.
The current estimate, however, largely covers only the cost of infrastructure such as pipes, construction of borewells, overhead costs among others and not the expenditure to be incurred on operation and maintenance.
That would result in the military under-spending about Rs 80,000 crore over the financial year.
Despite partial restoration of salaries, pilots across airlines remain dissatisfied, throwing challenges for managers.
India Ratings and Research on Friday revised down India's FY22 real GDP growth forecast to 10.1 per cent, from earlier projection of 10.4 per cent, citing the second wave of COVID-19 infections and slower pace of vaccination. At a time when large parts of the country are experiencing tremendous pressure on medical infrastructure, the agency said it expects the second wave to start subsiding by mid-May. Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank maintained its 10.5 per cent GDP growth estimate, but Governor Shaktikanta Das has flagged the rising cases as the biggest impediment to recovery.
There is no proposal to modify income tax returns forms, finance ministry sources clarified when asked to comment on news reports that the purported statement of financial transactions expansion would result in the filing of high-value financial transactions in ITR by the taxpayers themselves.
This includes an infrastructure push which may lead to the government spending more than its budgeted capital expenditure for 2020-21. There are also discussions on increasing the scope and quantum of direct cash transfers to the beneficiaries who need it the most.
It said the searches that were launched on July 22 in nine cities like Bhopal, Indore, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Noida and some others are "continuing and further investigations are in progress."
The Election Commission has deployed 36 observers for monitoring the flow of illegal cash and other inducements during the upcoming assembly polls in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura. The officials have been deputed by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (Income Tax department) and Central Board of Excise and Customs (Customs and Excise department) and will act as Election Expenditure Observers, a senior Revenue department official said.
After the April-July fiscal deficit data was released on August 31, several analysts hinted that the government may need to go for cuts in capital expenditure to meet the fiscal deficit target.
With hotels and restaurants being barred from levying service charge, waiters, chefs and other workers are worried they will lose out on money and are planning to approach managements to seek a pay raise. They are also apprehensive that tips given by customers out of goodwill will dwindle. Uttarakhand-native Prakash Singh Koranga, 27, a chef who works at an outlet of popular franchise Moti Mahal Deluxe restaurant in south Delhi, said service charge which gets proportionally divided among the staff acts as an "extra income" and "incentive to give our best at the job".
Responding to another question, Choubey said that the phase-I of clinical trials have revealed excellent safety of the two candidate vaccines indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research and Cadila Healthcare Ltd, and now their immunogenicity testing is in progress. Their phase II clinical trials are ongoing.
"The amended second draft (known as DAP) has since been finalised by the review committee driven by tenets of defence reforms announced as part of the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan' and has been placed in the public domain," the ministry said.
He was last month appointed as Secretary in Department of Economic Affairs in place of his batchmate Arvind Mayaram, who was first shifted to Tourism and then to Minority Affairs Ministry.
Like 2017-18, govt will seek comments from the public at large, including Facebook and Twitter
Earlier in the day, President Ram Nath Kovind accepted Murmu's resignation as the Lt Governor of Jammu and Kashmir.
President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday appointed Chandra as 24th CEC on Monday.
Bharatiya Janta Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's 'Hoonkar Rally' in Patna on October 27 has come under the scanner of the income tax department in Bihar, officials said on Thursday.
'I do not want every Tom, Dick and Harry to collect money. Is there any state control over this collection of funds via crowdfunding?'
The Centre on Tuesday permitted 20 states to raise Rs 68,825 crore through open market borrowings to bridge the GST revenue shortfall.
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