The health and family welfare ministry spent 70 per cent of its allocation till October. The ministry may need additional funds for the vaccination drive which is expected to be kicked off from January.
'There is also a possibility that Andhra Pradesh may demand a similar package. But as of now, we are only working on a package for Bihar.'
'It has also outlived its initial purpose of reducing physical gold imports.'
Facing criticism from the government over the central bank prioritising inflation over growth, the new RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra on Monday said that prospects of the Indian economy are expected to improve on the back of high consumer and business confidence in 2025. "As we strive to preserve financial stability to support a higher growth path for the Indian economy, our focus remains steadfast on maintaining stability of financial institutions and, more broadly, systemic stability," Malhotra said in foreword to the Financial Stability Report.
The President will address both the Houses of Parliament assembled together in the Lok Sabha chamber on Friday and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the General Budget on Saturday.
Labour Ministry has justified EPFO's declaring 9.5 per cent interest for 2010-11.
Delhi-based electric vehicle (EV) ride-hailing firm Evera Cabs, which grabbed headlines after acquiring 500 cars from the now-defunct cab service BluSmart, is stepping up its presence in the EV cab segment. The company is aiming for revenue of Rs 100 crore in the ongoing financial year (2025-26), up from Rs 18 crore in 2024-25.
'He will be remembered more for what he did as finance minister -- as someone who functioned well when the political fallout was taken care of.'
The Union health ministry has been allocated Rs 99,858.56 crore in the Budget 2025-2026, an around 11 per cent hike over the Rs 89,974.12 crore in the budget (revised estimates) of 2024-2025 with the government announcing setting up daycare cancer centres at all district hospitals over the next three years.
The government on Monday appointed Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra as the 26th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet cleared Malhotra's name, who has been appointed as the RBI Governor for three years, starting Wednesday. Malhotra, a 1990 Batch Rajasthan Cadre IAS Officer, will replace Shaktikanta Das, whose tenure ends on Tuesday (December 10, 2024).
Pre-Budget excercise next month should scrupulously avoid adventurism of all types and refrain from making excessively ambitious projections on revenue and expenditure numbers for 2023-24, suggests A K Bhattacharya.
The Centre may overshoot the Rs 56,260 crore target for dividend receipts from central public-sector enterprises (CPSEs) set for FY25 and is likely to end up getting around Rs 65,000 crore this financial year, according to a senior government official. This excludes dividend from nationalised banks and financial institutions. As on October 21, the Centre collected Rs 28,913 crore as dividend and other investment from CPSEs, accounting for over 50 per cent of the Budget Estimate for FY25.
'The voice which came wherever I travelled was that we are proud taxpayers. We are honest taxpayers. We want to continue to serve the country by being good taxpayers.' 'But what do you think about the kind of things you can do for us?'
Roads, railways, and coal together are likely to account for 70 per cent of the government's takings from the upcoming second edition of the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), set to run from FY26 to FY30. In comparison, these three sectors are estimated to have contributed 66 per cent in the first edition of the NMP - FY22 to FY25.
The government has approved the 'Terms of Reference' for the 16 Finance Commission, which makes recommendations on sharing of tax revenues between the Centre and states. The recommendations would cover a five-year period commencing April 1, 2026, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said on Wednesday, giving details about the decisions taken at the Cabinet meeting last evening. The commission would submit its report by October 31, 2025, Thakur said.
The swindled amount is nearly half of WazirX's total assets.
The finance minister's assertion that industry should not expect any spectacular announcements in the 2024 interim Budget suggest that the electoral imperatives of more tax concessions or higher expenditure on welfarist programmes could be far less pronounced than they were before the 2019 interim Budget, expects A K Bhattacharya.
'With new projects and recently awarded projects kicking in, capital expenditure should only increase going forward.'
Sanjay Malhotra takes charge as the 26th RBI governor at a time when headline retail inflation has shot up to 6.2%.
The finance ministry is in favour of extending the August deadline for public sector banks (PSBs) as well as insurance companies to increase their minimum public shareholding (MPS) to the mandated 25 per cent, said a senior government official. "The election results will determine the course of action. "Most likely, those who did not receive an extension to meet the minimum shareholding norm will be granted one," the senior government official said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has accused the Border Security Force (BSF), central agencies, and the BJP of fanning tension in Murshidabad by allegedly facilitating cross-border influx from Bangladesh. She also urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to keep the Union Home Ministry under control. Banerjee has announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh each for the families of three people killed during the violence and directed the state chief secretary to initiate a probe into the role of the BSF.
The country's gross GST collections rose to Rs 1.73 lakh crore in May, growing 10 per cent year on year driven by increased revenues from domestic transactions, the finance ministry said on Saturday. GST collections had touched a record high of Rs 2.10 lakh crore last month.
Parliament's Budget Session will be held from January 31 to April 4, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman set to table her eighth straight budget on February 1. The session will begin with President Droupadi Murmu's address to a joint sitting of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on January 31, followed by the tabling of the economic survey. The first part of the Budget Session will have nine sittings from January 31 to February 13, after which Parliament will break for recess to examine the budget proposals. The session will reconvene on March 10 to discuss the demands for grants of various ministries and complete the budgetary process, concluding on April 4.
Anmol Singh Jaggi and Puneet Singh Jaggi, once hailed as rising stars in India's clean energy sector, are now facing serious regulatory action.
The GST collection in February grew 12.5 per cent to over Rs 1.68 lakh crore, buoyed by domestic transactions, the finance ministry said on Friday. The total gross GST collection for the current fiscal (April 2023-February 2024) stands at Rs 18.40 lakh crore, 11.7 per cent higher than the mopup for the same period last fiscal.
The family of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has approved the proposed site for his memorial at the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal in New Delhi. The memorial, measuring around 900 square metres, will be located adjacent to the memorial of former President Pranab Mukherjee. A trust will be set up to oversee the construction of the memorial, which will be funded by a government grant of Rs 25 lakh.
The government is set to ask PSBs to expeditiously introduce repo-rate linked products "to step up affordable credit".
The Union government is expecting to rake in Rs 100-200 crore in additional revenue from Pillar Two, only under specific circumstances, a senior finance ministry official said requesting anonymity. It is proceeding cautiously, and is unlikely to implement rules anytime soon, the source said.
With the prediction of an above normal monsoon in 2024, the government is expecting food prices to come down, the finance ministry's monthly economic report for March has said. The report, released on Thursday, said robust foreign inflows and comfortable trade deficits were expected to keep the rupee within a comfortable range. "Further easing of food prices is on the anvil as IMD (India Meteorological Department) has predicted above-normal rainfall during the monsoon season, which is likely to lead to higher production, assuming good spatial and temporal distribution of the rainfall," the monthly report, released by the Department of Economic Affairs, said.
With this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also sent a strong message to ally, Janata Dal-United President and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, that their partnership remains intact and that they will be formidable partners at the hustings.
GST collections in March grew 11.5 per cent to Rs 1.78 lakh crore, buoyed by domestic transactions, the finance ministry said on Monday. The gross GST collection for the last fiscal (April 2023-March 2024) stood at Rs 20.14 lakh crore, 11.7 per cent higher than the mop-up in the preceding fiscal. The average monthly gross collection for FY24 stood at Rs 1.68 lakh crore, exceeding Rs 1.5 lakh crore in the preceding fiscal.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar upon his arrival from Saudi Arabia to take stock of the situation following the terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir. The meeting also included Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri. The attack, which killed at least 26 people, including tourists from the UAE and Nepal, has sparked nationwide shock and outrage.
The government also announced that healthcare cover under the Ayushman Bharat insurance scheme will be extended to all ASHA and anganwadi workers and helpers.
After HPCL, the government headhunter struggled to find a suitable candidate for the top job at Bharat Petroleum, as most applicants were narrow specialists lacking multidisciplinary experience needed to run a large organisation. The Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) last month interviewed a dozen candidates including BPCL director (finance) Vetsa Ramakrishna Gupta and its director (refineries) S Khanna but found none suitable for the job of chairman and managing director of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), according to a PESB order.
The country's gross GST collections hit a record high of Rs 2.10 lakh crore in April, growing 12.4 per cent year on year driven by a strong increase in domestic transactions and imports. GST collections breach landmark milestone of Rs 2 lakh crore, the finance ministry said in a statement.
The National Informatics Centre uses AI to automate document analysis and detect fraud in government departments.
Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND) has imposed a Rs 5.49 crore penalty on Paytm Payments Bank for violating anti-money laundering rules, the Finance Ministry said on Friday. FIU-IND initiated a review of Paytm Payments Bank on receipt of specific information from law enforcement agencies in respect of few entities and their network of businesses engaged in a number of illegal acts, including organising and facilitating online gambling.
Public sector banks (PSBs) have proposed the Finance Ministry their plan to raise Rs 54,800 crore through Additional Tier-1 (AT-1) and Tier-2 bonds in the current financial year (FY25), 37 per cent more than the Rs 39,880 crore raised in FY24
States are mandated to develop and implement 'heat HAPs' for prevention of heat-induced diseases. But most do not go beyond standard advisory on heat prevention.
Two years after his dismissive stance on India's AI potential raised eyebrows here, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Wednesday gave a ringing endorsement to Artificial Intelligence momentum in the country -- and billed India as an important market not just for the new-age technology itself but for the ChatGPT creator as well. In New Delhi on Wednesday, Altman -- while sharing dais with Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw -- said India is the second biggest market for the company and that Open AI had tripled its users here in the last year.