Page 41 - Finance Ministry

Five-day work week in banks soon as industry demand gets nod from IBA

The proposal has now been sent to the finance ministry for its final approval. If approved, all Saturdays will be declared as bank holidays

Policy repo rate cut not likely before Q1FY25: Business Standard poll

Despite inflation worries, MPC to maintain status quo on rates in its meet this week

India's improved monsoon performance, capex augur well: FinMin report

India's improved monsoon performance, continued expansion in manufacturing, and vigorous capital expenditure spending by the public and private sectors augur well for macroeconomic stability and growth during FY24, the finance ministry said in a report. However, it cautioned that cross-border spillovers and adverse global developments can act anytime as a deterrent to achieving the potential high growth path in the current financial year. The government's emphasis on capex in recent years has given a much-needed thrust to investments in key infrastructure, which has resulted in crowding in of private investment to kickstart the virtuous circle of job creation, income, productivity, demand, and exports supported by favourable demographic dividend over the coming years, said the June edition of the Finance Ministry's Monthly Economic Review. As per Axis Bank Business and Economic Research, Capex by the Corporate sector increased by 22.4 per cent in FY23 compared to the last year, driv

Top 50 wilful defaulters owe Rs 87,295 cr to banks: Finance Minister

The finance ministry on Tuesday said top 50 wilful defaulters including Gitanjali Gems Limited, Era Infra Engineering Limited, REI Agro Limited, and ABG Shipyard Limited owe Rs 87,295 crore to banks and financial institutions. Of this, top 10 wilful defaulters owe Rs 40,825 crore to schedule commercial banks (SCBs), Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha. SCBs have written off an aggregate amount of Rs 10,57,326 crore during the last five financial years (RBI provisional data for FY 2022-23), he said. "The Reserve bank of India (RBI) has apprised that the amount owed by top 50 wilful defaulters in SCBs was Rs 87,295 crore as on March 31, 2023," he said. Fugitive Mehul Choksi's Gitanjali Gems is the biggest wilful defaulter owing Rs 8,738 crore to banks. It is followed by Era Infra Engineering Limited owing Rs 5,750 crore, REI Agro Limited Rs 5,148 crore, ABG Shipyard Limited Rs 4,774 crore, and Concast Steel and Power Limited Rs 3,911 ...

Improved detection, reporting bring down bank fraud cases: MoS Finance

Improved detection and reporting, along with steps taken to check bank frauds, have resulted in a sharp decline in the occurrence of such incidence, Parliament was informed on Monday. Sharing data, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad said bank frauds have declined from Rs 77,544 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 1,650 crore in 2022-23. Comprehensive steps, including measures to address security flaws/loopholes and to strengthen the fraud risk management mechanism in banks, have been taken by the government, RBI and public sector banks (PSBs), Karad said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. Some of the measures include an online searchable database of frauds reported by banks, in the form of the Central Fraud Registry has been set up to enable timely identification, control and mitigation of fraud risk and also to carry out due diligence during the credit sanction process and heads of PSBs have been empowered to issue requests for issuance of Look-Out circulars. Besides, he said a ...

77% of Rs 2,000 notes returned by users to banks as of June 30: FinMin

The number of Rs 2,000 notes in circulation fell to 418 million in volume terms on June 30, from 1.77 billion on May 19, the ministry said

AIGF appeals to FinMin against repeated taxation in online skill gaming

AIGF pointed out that while certain companies across formats that offer large tournaments may scrape through, even their revenues will be substantially affected

Companies allowed to list on GIFT IFSC for foreign flows: Sitharaman

India has been considering proposals to allow firms to list on foreign exchanges, in order to compete with Chinese companies that flourish on bourses in the US

Financial frauds in India rose 65% between 2021 and 2022: Finance Ministry

National Payment Corporation of India informed the Parliamentary Committee that, on average 2,000 customers are impacted by cyber frauds in India every month

'Diversify credit portfolio': FinMin flags concentration risk at 5 PSBs

BoI, PNB, UCO, Canara, and Punjab & Sind Bank told to trim exposure to any particular group or industry

Banks recovered bad loans worth Rs 10.16 trillion in 9 years: FinMin

Wilful defaulters and companies with wilful defaulters as promoters/directors have been debarred from accessing capital markets to raise funds: Bhagwat Karad

Centre devolved more than Rs 3.09 trn to states till July: MoS Finance

The Centre has devolved over Rs 3.09 lakh crore to states till July of the Rs 10.21 lakh crore budgeted to be transferred in the current fiscal, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said on Tuesday. "Out of Rs 10.21 lakh crore estimated to be transferred to states for the FY 2023-24, Rs 3,09,521.22 crore has been devolved till July 2023, in 4 instalments having double the normal amount in June'23 for FY 2023-24. There is no pendency on part of devolution payable to states...," Chaudhary said in the Lok Sabha. Of the Rs 3.09 lakh crore net proceeds of shareable union taxes and duties distributed to the states, Central GST collection devolution stood at Rs 94,368 crore till July. "Part of the CGST collected and credited to the Consolidated Fund of India is devolved to the States as per the accepted recommendations of the Finance Commission. The total amount of such CGST devolution released to states during FY 2022-23 was Rs 2,68,334.19 crore; this was released in 14 ...

Over 750,000 HUFs claimed Rs 3,803 cr tax deductions in 2022-23: FinMin

Over 8.75 lakh Hindu Undivided Families (HUFs) have filed income tax returns (ITRs) and claimed deductions worth Rs 3,803 crore during 2022-23, the Finance Ministry said on Tuesday. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary in a reply to the Rajya Sabha provided details of the number of Hindu Undivided Families (HUF) availing tax benefits (in the form of deduction under Chapter VIA of the Income-tax Act) during the last five years. To a question on whether the government has assessed the impact of the Uniform Civil Code on tax benefits to HUFs in the country, the minister said: "No such assessment has been made as there is no such Code at present". Currently, a debate is going on about the status of the HUFs, following the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code on which the Law Commission has invited comments from the public. Under Hindu Law, a HUF is a family comprising all lineally descendants of a common ancestor, including wives and unmarried daughters. This provision al

Monsoon session: NARCL acquired Rs 21K crore of bad loans in Q4FY23

A Parliamentary panel on Monday asked the government to look at the feasibility of setting up a specialised security agency for airports amid rising air passenger traffic

100,000 tax notices to be disposed of by March: FM Nirmala Sitharaman

Notices served in past years for misreporting, non-filing of returns for income above Rs 50 lakh

Govt officers entitled to mobile, laptop costing up to Rs 1.3 lakh

Central government officers will be entitled to mobile, laptop or similar devices costing up to Rs 1.3 lakh, which can be retained by them for personal use after 4 years. The Finance Ministry's Expenditure Department, in an office memorandum, listed out guidelines for the issuance of mobile, laptop, tablet, phablet, notebook, notepad, ultra-book, net-book or devices of similar categories to eligible officers for official work. As per the guidelines, all central government officers of the rank of deputy secretary and above will be entitled to such electronic devices. In the case of Section Officers and Under Secretaries, 50 per cent of the sanctioned strength can be issued such devices. Regarding the cost of the device, the office memorandum said it could be Rs 1 lakh plus taxes. However, for devices with a Make-in-India component of more than 40 per cent, the price ceiling will be Rs 1.30 lakh plus taxes. "No new device may be sanctioned to an officer who has already been allotted

FM urges RRBs to focus on improving credit-deposit ratio by lending in NE

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday reviewed the performance of Regional Rural Banks of the northeast region and asked them to improve the credit-deposit ratio by giving more loans. During the meeting with heads of Regional Rural Banks (RRBs), she exhorted them to work towards meeting the credit requirements of rural people of the Northeast, the finance ministry said in a series of tweets. Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi, SBI Chairman Dinesh Khara, PNB Managing Director Atul Kumar Goel and other senior government officials of northeastern states and bank representatives were present at the meeting. The Finance Minister stated that emphasis should be on giving as much credit to the priority sector as possible. "Smt @nsitharaman directed the Secretary @DFS_India to review individual #RRBs in presence of their sponsor banks and to identify their strengths and specific issues affecting their performance," a tweet said. She said that a roadmap has to be prepared with

RBI to banks: Report all digital frauds not just those above Rs 1 lakh

The rising volumes of UPI transactions and related frauds have emerged as a major challenge for the banks

Financial services secy asks banks to achieve financial inclusion targets

Financial services secretary Vivek Joshi has urged public sector banks to achieve the targets allocated to them under various schemes for financial inclusion for the current financial year at the earliest. During a review meeting with the top management of state-owned banks and Nabard chairman, Joshi exhorted the banks to expeditiously clear the sanction and disbursement pendency of applications under PM Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) scheme. He further urged banks to devise the strategy and step up efforts to increase the digital onboarding of street vendors and scale up their digital payments, the finance ministry said in a statement on Thursday. PM SVANidhi scheme envisages empowerment of street vendors through hassle free access to affordable credit and their digital onboarding for their economic development. During the meeting, he reviewed the progress under various social security (Jan Suraksha) schemes, including Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), Pradh

PSBs stepping up recovery of bad loans to meet FinMin's 40% target: Report

In the five years that ended on March 31, 2022, the PSBs were able to recover only 14 per cent, Rs 1.03 trillion, out of the total written-off loans of Rs 7.34 trillion