About one-fourth of the Indian population is without pension coverage and only 13 per cent of the country's paid employees are under formal pension arrangement, a survey has found.
An increase in the farmer income support scheme PM Kisan Nidhi, the introduction of a 'robot tax' to fund reskilling of people who lose their jobs to artificial intelligence (AI), and a reduced income-tax (I-T) to bring relief to the middle classes - these are some of the items in the Budget wish list submitted by Sangh Parivar affiliates to Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman. Representatives of the affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), such as the farmer organisation Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS); trade union Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS); Laghu Udyog Bharati, which works for micro and small industries; and Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), which works on economic and policy issues, met the FM and other officials over the last couple of weeks as part of the pre-Budget consultations.
24 hours before campaigning ends in Thiruvanathapuram, Archana Masih/Rediff.com discovers Shashi Tharoor and his BJP rival Rajeev Chandrasekhar are busy getting their message across to voters.
However, the government rejected the army's demand to implement the scheme with retrospective effect from June last year, when the Doklam face-off between Indian and Chinese armies had begun, official sources said.
The committee has termed the Employee Provident Fund Organisation's data on number of pensioners subscribed to the Employee's Pension Scheme, 1995 as 'inflated and imaginary'. Top officials of the labour ministry and the provident fund organisation were unable to explain how calculations for pensionary liability were arrived at without knowing the number of pensioners in the country.
The SR Abhiyan meeting held in Jaipur, Rajasthan to mark the completion of seven years of MGNREGA decided that both pensions and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act would be made electoral issues and political parties would be asked to take a stand before canvassing during the upcoming state and national elections.
'Barring a temporary blip where stocks fell on verdict day, we are back to all-time highs.'
With a large number of Indian youth aspiring to work in the railways, delays in filling up railway job vacancies were a point of criticism against the BJP in the run-up to the elections.
All that you wanted to know about the new pension scheme and pension fund managers.
'Filing a nil ITR serves as a formal declaration to the tax authorities that your earnings fell below the taxable threshold in the given financial year, and you had no tax liability during that period.'
Jannayak Janta Party chief Ajay Singh Chautala on Wednesday said his party worked with full honesty to fulfil the 'gathbandhan dharma' over the last four and half years of the alliance and his party was never power hungry.
Short-term government bonds fell behind longer-dated securities in demand this month so far due to a liquidity crunch in the banking system and expectations of a delay in a rate cut, said market participants. Investors have favoured longer-tenure government bonds, or g-secs, with insurance companies and pension funds leading the charge by stocking up on those with maturities of 30 years and more. Preference for longer-term securities was strengthened by the conclusion of the borrowing programme, which compelled institutional investors to fulfil their requirements in the secondary market.
The proposed PFRDA bill, aimed at setting up a regulator and manage a new pension system, will not allow pension schemes to invest their money in individual stocks.
A combination of EPF, PPF, NPS along with equities will be a good option.
Subscribers to the proposed pension funds will be given Unique Account Number to enable them to deposit their subscription in any collection centre across the country.
All those years of contributions not adding up to a big reward definitely makes the scheme unappealing.
Six firms have qualified for managing EPFO funds.
The Union ministers and farmer leaders had met earlier on February 8, 12 and 15 but the talks remained inconclusive.
Using the Mahabharat reference as a leitmotif, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Monday claimed that an atmosphere of fear prevails all around with a group of six trapping the entire country in a 'chakravyuh' he promised would be broken by the INDIA bloc.
The long-awaited Pension Bill to set up a regulator and manage the new pension scheme for government employees is likely to come up before Parliament in the forthcoming session beginning May 10.
The PFRDA is engaged in consolidating the initiatives taken so far regarding the full New Pension System and expanding the reach of distribution network.
Here is the complete list of ministers in Modi 3.0 and their portfolios:
The decision is likely to bring additional amount of about Rs 1,500 crore or Rs 15 billion (including interest) in the books of MTNL as refund from government for the pension that the PSU paid to its employees.
A pension disbursing bank can access the portal to get digital life certificate.
The finance ministry on Tuesday made it clear that there was no move to stop pension to retired central government employees beyond 75 years of age.
All pre-election opinion polls indicate a strong majority for the Opposition Labour Party, forcing the incumbent Sunak-led Conservatives on the back foot to caution voters against handing a "supermajority" to the Keir Starmer-led Labour.
Finance Minister Jaswant Singh said on Friday interest rates on pension funds needed to be brought in line with declining interest rates in the market.
Compulsory retirement is part of a half-yearly exercise now for cases where government wants to weed out officers, but without taking the disciplinary proceedings route.
Military veterans are finally set to get their dues following Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's assertion that the 'One Rank One Pension' scheme is just weeks away from being implemented.
The next government in these states may find it tough to push economic growth through long-term reforms, which would be necessary.
Global pension funds have started investing aggressively in primary market offers. Till recently, they were not looking beyond some of the largest Indian listed companies.
The finance minister continues to be backed by the same policy team in charting out the broad strategy as in the few earlier Budgets.
Seeking to dispel the impression of policy inaction, the government is likely to give a push to pension sector reform by approving changes in the proposed PFRDA Bill so that it can be taken up by Parliament for the passage in the Monsoon session next month.
If you work for 30 years, a two per cent difference in pension returns can reduce your final retirement nest egg by 40 per cent. The Rs 9-trillion National Pension System (NPS) seems to be delivering incrementally higher returns than the twice-as-large Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), shows a Business Standard analysis of data over the last seven years for the two retirement fund bodies. An investor who put in Rs 100 in retirement savings seven years ago would have seen her NPS nest egg grow to Rs 182 by 2023, according to the analysis based on the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority's recently released Handbook of National Pension System Statistics 2023.
Decks have been cleared for the long-awaited pension reforms with the union cabinet on Thursday giving approval to a proposal to bring in legislation for setting up a separate regulator for the sector. \n
