The finance ministry on Friday informed a parliamentary committee that smuggling of fake currency has totally stopped post demonetisation and the tax department has seized Rs 515 crore in cash, including Rs 114 crore of new currency notes, up to January 10.
Pepsico India Holding need not divest 49 per cent equity in bottling firms to Indian companies, with the government today exempting it from the obligation following change in FDI rules for the food processing sector.
Aiming at bolstering the sagging economy as well as providing housing to all, the urban poor will get 5 per cent interest subsidy for home loans up to Rs 100,000, taken during the Eleventh Plan period.
The bond, which the Reserve Bank of India started issuing on behalf of the Union government in 2003, was considered one of the safest savings instruments for retail investors.
In order to provide greater leeway to central government departments and ministries to finalise centrally-funded projects, the Department of Expenditure under the finance ministry has increased the financial limits of projects requiring approval from various cost-approving bodies.
While the government expects the new urea policy to bring more investment, the fertiliser industry is less than enthused. New capacities to make urea, industry representatives say, will come up only if adequate fuel and timely payment of subsidy dues is ensured.
Announcing this in New Delhi, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said trial runs on the new third runway of IGI Airport would begin in ten days from now. Once operational, it would go a long way to ease the air traffic congestion over the Delhi airspace. The two airports, as per the recommendations of the respective state governments, would be developed by the state-owned AAI and not privatised.
A meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs was specially convened this morning to consider OVL's Imperial bid, as Tuesday is the last date for making the offer to the target company's shareholders. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chaired the meeting that had just one agenda and lasted one-and-half hours, but no official word was available.
The introduction of 10 per cent mandatory blending of ethanol with petrol is unlikely to happen from this October, as decided by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in October 2007.
Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath conveyed India's resentment to Finnish Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Vayrynen. He will also be taking up the issue with the Netherland's Minister for Economic Affairs M Vander Hoeven in New Delhi on Wednesday. The two sides have managed to keep these issues out of the proposed FTA despite pressure from some EU members like France, government officials said.
Debroy is expected to have a role and responsibility similar to the erstwhile chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council
The government on Thursday decided to sell 10 per cent shares in Nalco and Neyveli Lignite Corporation.
On his maiden foreign tour, Bhutan's first Prime Minister Lyonchen Jigmi Y Thinley arrived in New Delhi on Monday for a visit, during which the two sides will look at ways to boost their friendly relations further.Thinley will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday on a wide range of issues, with particular focus on enhancing ties in economic and business fields.He will also meet President Pratibha Patil, Vice President Hamid Ansari.
The $100-million fund, which has the option to raise a further $200 million, will benefit small and medium enterprises engaged in defence production.
The finance ministry is of the view that all interests -- direct and indirect -- should be taken into account and that there should not be any threshold for calculating total effective foreign shareholding in a company.
The fuel price hike for the last 16 days had caused inconvenience and disappointment among the general public.
The first Budget of Independent India was presented by R K Shanmukham Chetty on November 26, 1947.
Announcing the decision after the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, Finance Minister P Chiadambaram said this is an ad-hoc measure and the recommendation of Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices has been referred to the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council. The CACP had recommended the paddy MSP at Rs 1,000 per quintal for 2008-09 Kharif season.
With shrinking employment opportunities in the state sector, the government on Thursday approved a Rs 1,800 crore (Rs 18 billion) scheme for incentivising private sector to employ 1,00,000 disabled people a year.
The Cabinet Committee for Economic Affairs is expected to meet on Wednesday evening to take this decision, given the cheap crude prices in the global market. The government had last cut petrol prices on December by Rs 5, and diesel rates by Rs 2 a litre.
Now for the first time, the top team in North Block has the predominance of IAS officers.
Dismissing as 'statistically insignificant' the 0.04 per cent hike in inflation, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday said the prices of essential commodities had begun to come down and this would be reflected in the inflation index after some time. Talking to reporters after the weekly briefing on the decisions of the Cabinet and its Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), Chidambaram said the inflation figure released on Friday has come as a 'big relief'.
The government has enhanced the emoluments of the President, the Vice President and governors to Rs 1.5 lakh, Rs 1.25 lakh and Rs 1.10 lakh respectively. The Cabinet secretary and defence chiefs too have been given substantial increments.
Rs 14.5 lakh crore of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes have been deposited as of 30/12.
The Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs is all set to announce the guidelines for FDI in commodity exchanges. Following this, the Forward Markets Commission is expected to submit the proposal for ownership structure of exchanges before the Union ministry of consumer affairs.
UAE's promise of $50-bn investment in Indian infra won't be included.
the ratings agencies have been inconsistent in their treatment of China and India. Given this record -- what we call Poor Standards -- my question is: why do we take these rating analysts seriously at all?," Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian said on Thursday.
The ones chosen for operation, management and development through a public-private partnership model are Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, and Guwahati.
However, if the rupee depreciates much, the economy in dollar terms would be that much smaller.
In a Facebook post on the second anniversary of demonetisation, Jaitley said in first four years of the National Democratic Alliance government, the number of income tax returns filers has gone up to 6.86 crore from 3.8 crore in May 2014.
A 15 per cent corporate tax rate for services companies in SEZs, setting up a fund for deep-tech startups and establishing clusters to demonstrate design-to-manufacturing capabilities of tech firms were some of the key demands made by the IT sector at the pre-Budget consultation on Monday. The participants shared their views and suggestions regarding Big Data, incentives for encouraging setting up of data centres, fiscal incentives for data localisation, incentives for pushing digital penetration in rural areas, and corporate guarantee to startups for competing with other nations.
Roads account for the second largest amount of bad loans.
The allotment is expected to attract investments of $1.5 billion, around 57 per cent less than the $3.5 billion commitment for the 52 blocks awarded under the previous auction. ONGC and its partners bagged the maximum number of 20 blocks in the seventh round, which closed on June 30. Australian mining major BHP Billiton and its partner GVK Power, bidding for the first time, won seven deepwater blocks.
The government wants the RBI to part with most of its profit as dividend.
The department of economic affairs in the Union finance ministry has suggested aggressive sterilisation of foreign capital inflows, tightening of government expenditure and intervention in key farm produce markets like wheat.
The Union Cabinet and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Thursday approved a slew of social sector initiatives, including treating the backlog of reserved vacancies of other backward classes (OBCs) as a distinct group not subject to the limit of 50 per cent reservation in a year.
The government planned to borrow 10-15 per cent of the total borrowing offshore. That works out to at least Rs 71,000 crore, or about $10.4 billion at Friday's exchange rate.
Banks have been reluctant to transmit the entire policy rate cut by RBI to borrowers.
Germany is keen on investing in specific areas in West Bengal as part of a bid to strengthen Indo-German bilateral ties.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Friday cleared award of four Coal Bed Methane (CBM) blocks to an Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group-led consortium and three blocks to a consortium led by Australia's Arrow Energy.
