Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will kick start the customary pre-Budget consultation exercise with stakeholders from Wednesday by holding the first such meeting with experts of agriculture and agro-processing industry. She will be seeking inputs from various stakeholders, including industry bodies, farmer organisations and economists for reviving consumption and boosting growth hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The growth this year is expected to be in the double-digit during the current fiscal.
Under increasing pressure to cut interest rates on Employees Provident Fund, the labour ministry is expected to meet the Reserve Bank of India brass in a bid to retain the current rate of 9.5 per cent.
The retirement fund body EPFO is likely to announce the rate of interest on employees' provident fund (EPF) deposits for 2022-23 at its two-day meeting beginning Monday. EPFO had lowered the interest on EPF for 2021-22 to an over four-decade low of 8.1 per cent for its about five crore subscribers, from 8.5 per cent in 2020-21 in March 2022. This was the lowest since 1977-78, when the EPF interest rate stood at 8 per cent.
The message is clear: The 60-year-old wise uncles need to handhold the 40-year-old entrepreneurs when, obsessed with ambition and greed for growth, they become a victim of hubris, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Five Parliamentarians from Karnataka including Janata Dal-Secular leader and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Nirmala Sitharaman and Pralhad Joshi, who were part of the previous Cabinet, on Sunday took oath in the new National Democratic Alliance Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Election Commission (EC) had, in 2019, flagged its concerns in the Supreme Court on the changes made in several laws relating to political funding to facilitate the electoral bonds scheme, saying it will have 'serious repercussions' on transparency.
The decision was taken as the Income-Tax Department found that a huge outstanding demand was not recoverable.
GST collections in June witnessed a 56 per cent year-on-year increase to over Rs 1.44 lakh crore on economic recovery and better anti-evasion measures, the finance ministry said on Friday. Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections in June, 2021 stood at Rs 92,800 crore. Speaking at the GST Day celebrations, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Rs 1.4 lakh crore is the "rough bottom line" for monthly GST revenue collections.
State Bank of India has approached the finance ministry for floating a rights issue to meet core capital requirements in the coming years, its MD T S Bhattacharya said on Monday.
The 'halwa ceremony' marks the beginning of the lockdown of several officials in the finance ministry, who remain cut off from their families until the presentation of the Budget by the finance minister in the Lok Sabha.
GST collection grew by 12 per cent in April to Rs 1.87 lakh crore, the highest monthly mop-up since the rollout of the indirect tax regime. The gross GST revenue collected in the month of April 2023 is Rs 1,87,035 crore of which CGST is Rs 38,440 crore, SGST is Rs 47,412 crore, IGST is Rs 89,158 crore (including Rs 34,972 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is Rs 12,025 crore, the finance ministry said in a statement. The previous high collection of Rs 1.68 lakh crore was in April last year.
Billionaire Gautam Adani to two Union Ministers and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis among others on Sunday hailed India crossing $4 trillion mark though there was no official confirmation if the country has achieved the landmark. The finance ministry and the National Statistical Office did not immediately comment on the viral social media post on India's GDP crossing $4 trillion. Highly placed sources said that the viral news was incorrect and India was still shy of that landmark.
'India has a skill shortage of 56%.' 'This is a very interesting paradox -- the unemployment rate is 6% to 7%, and at the same time 20% of those qualified are unemployed.'
During 2023, the Indian real estate sector - both housing and commercial - witnessed buoyancy fuelled by demand, supply, and absorption, and the sector is banking on the upcoming Budget to keep the momentum going. Mumbai-based Sattva Group wants the government to focus on the critical pillars for long-term growth. The company emphasised on the infrastructure boom with increased allocation, lower goods and services tax (GST) rates, incentives for affordable housing and single-window clearance to fast-track projects and support liquidity.
GST revenues rose by 11 per cent to about Rs 1.46 lakh crore in November over the year-ago period, the Finance Ministry said on Thursday. This is the ninth straight month when collections from Goods and Services Tax (GST) has remained above Rs 1.40 lakh crore. The gross GST revenue collected in the month of November 2022 is Rs 1,45,867 crore of which Central GST is Rs 25,681 crore, State GST is Rs 32,651 crore, Integrated GST is Rs 77,103 crore (including Rs 38,635 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is Rs 10,433 crore (including Rs 817 crore collected on import of goods).
North Block is concerned that when India is trying to attract more investment, putting up restrictions on audit firms could create an avoidable bad advertisement.
Noted economist and senior Trinamool Congress leader Amit Mitra is likely to step down as the West Bengal finance minister and even retire from active politics due to ill health, party sources said on Sunday.
Dismissing reports, the Reserve Bank on Monday said there is no proposal to replace the face of Mahatma Gandhi with that of others on currency notes. In a statement, the central bank said there are reports in certain sections of the media that the Reserve Bank of India is considering changes to the existing currency and banknotes by replacing the face of Mahatma Gandhi with that of others.
India's inflation trajectory in the coming months will be influenced more by the geo-political situation due to the war in Europe and its impact on supply chains and commodity prices. However, the country is better placed than most to "weather the storm" and achieve growth of close to 8 per cent in the current fiscal year, the finance ministry said in its latest monthly economic report on Thursday. "Through the channel of imports, elevated global crude and edible oil prices now have a significant impact on India's inflation outlook. "Government measures to keep the prices of these commodities in check, along with the recent hike in policy rates by the RBI, are expected to temper inflationary pressures in the economy," the monthly economic report for April, drafted by the finance ministry's economic division, said.
The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is considering raising the monthly minimum wage ceiling from Rs 15,000 now to improve the coverage and bring millions of informal workers under its purview. The last increase in the minimum wage ceiling was in 2014 to Rs 15,000 from Rs 6,500.
The finance ministry has finalised the framework to issue sovereign green bonds in line with global standards, according to sources. The government intends to mobilise Rs 16,000 crore from the issuance of green bonds during the second half of the current financial year. It is a part of the borrowing programme for the second half of this fiscal. The framework is ready and it would be approved soon, the sources said.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday met IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva and discussed a range of issues, including impact of geopolitical situation on global growth.
US nominee for World Bank president, Ajay Banga, has tested positive for COVID-19 following which the meetings scheduled during his two-day visit to India have been cancelled. According to a Finance Ministry statement, Banga's meeting with Nirmala Sitharaman would not happen as he is in quarantine. "During routine testing, Ajay Banga tested positive for COVID-19 but remains asymptomatic.
A clarification issued by the office of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that a procedure has been put in place for "streamlining and facilitating" the entry of media persons inside the ministry of finance and "no ban is in place" on the entry of media persons in the ministry.
Currently, banks are closed every second and fourth Saturday of a month. Why shouldn't they be shut every Saturday? When most customers carry their banks in their pocket (the app on the mobile phone), there is no need to keep banks open on Saturdays, argues Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The Sittwe deal is more significant than Chabahar in Iran, where India has rights to operate only two terminals and not the port itself.
The government on Friday proposed hiking the securities transaction tax on Futures & Options (F&O) contracts, a move that will increase the trading costs in the derivatives segment as well as help in curbing excessive trades. In the Finance Bill 2023, passed by the Lok Sabha on Friday, the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on options is proposed to be increased to 0.0625 per cent from 0.05 per cent and on futures contracts to 0.0125 from 0.01 per cent. Analysts opined that higher STT will shore up the government's revenues to some extent and also discourage excessive trading since a large number of retail traders are losing money in the segment.
The government on Tuesday announced Rs 900-crore allocation in the Budget for the newly set up Ministry of Cooperation for the 2022-23 fiscal, besides slashing Alternate Minimum Tax (AMT) on cooperative societies to 15 per cent and surcharge to 7 per cent, which nodal minister Amit Shah hailed saying it will boost the sector. Of the total allocation for the next fiscal, a significant amount of Rs 350 crore has been provided for digitisation of Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACs), while Rs 274 crore for an umbrella scheme 'Prosperity through Cooperatives' which would have a number of sub-components with the aim of all-round development of cooperatives in the country. For the first time, a separate budget of Rs 11 crore has been provided to Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management (VAMNICON).
He underwent a renal transplant on May 14 and on the same day, his ministerial charges were given to Piyush Goyal on an interim basis.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the country's regulators are very experienced and are seized of the matter relating to the Adani Group crisis. The minister was replying to a question on the observations of the Supreme Court on public interest litigations (PILs) alleging exploitation of investors and "artificial crashing" of the Adani Group's stocks. "I will not disclose here what the government will be saying in the court...India's regulators are very, very experienced and they are experts in their domain.
From the Sensex firms, Tech Mahindra, NTPC, Tata Steel, Maruti, Infosys, Power Grid, Larsen & Toubro, Axis Bank, Titan, Reliance Industries, Wipro and Mahindra & Mahindra were the biggest gainers. Sun Pharma, UltraTech Cement, Tata Motors, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bajaj Finance, State Bank of India and Nestle were among the laggards.
'We are in a position to start due diligence and private data room access shortly.'
Plug-in hybrids have two engines and the electric part has a much larger battery than in the regular hybrids. Car companies, led by the Japanese, are pushing the Indian government to look at hybrids in the interim if it wants to reduce carbon emission.
Sitharaman, India's first full-time woman finance minister, had in July 2019 ditched the colonial legacy of a Budget briefcase for the traditional 'bahi-khata' to carry Union Budget papers.
Starting early will help departments to get funds faster.
The government on Saturday imposed a 40 per cent duty on the export of onions to increase domestic availability amid signs of increasing prices. The export duty, which is the first time ever on onion, has been imposed as the retail sale price of the kitchen staple, according to government data, touched Rs 37/kg on Saturday in Delhi. The finance ministry through a Customs notification imposed a 40 per cent export duty on onions till December 31, 2023.
A 25 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) increase in budget allocation towards the roads sector for FY24 has led to renewed interest among investors. However, a combination of escalating costs for Bharatmala and unseasonal rains to some extent have impacted progress. Bharatmala's cost has nearly doubled from Rs 5.35 trillion to Rs 10.6 trillion and the finance ministry has asked MoRTH to go slow until Cabinet approval is received.
Finance ministry advises banks to invoke personal guarantees of all promoters whose companies have gone to NCLT for debt resolution.
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