by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, Economy, Finance, News, Politics
Arun Jaitley
New Delhi : Acknowledging that private investment was short in coming, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said that the government will come out with “appropriate action” at the right time to boost the economy.
“From day one, this is a proactive government. We are analysing the economic indicators and appropriate action will be taken at right time. There is a problem of private investment. Government has seized the issue. Very soon you will hear from us,” he said here while addressing the second “India Investor Summit” organised by New York based banking and financial services company J.P. Morgan.
Jaitley had chaired a high-level meeting on September 19 to review the economic situation and discuss measures. The meeting was attended by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian and Secretaries in the Finance Ministry — Ashok Lavasa, Subhash Chandra Garg, Hasmukh Adhia, Rajiv Kumar and Neeraj Kumar Gupta.
The government is said to be considering a financial stimulus package following a sharp fall in latest key macro indicators such as the gross domestic product (GDP) and industrial production as well as a widening current account deficit.
Pulled down by sluggish manufacturing, growth in the Indian economy in the first quarter of this fiscal fell to 5.7 per cent, clocking the lowest GDP growth rate since Narendra Modi took power in May 2014.
Asserting that corruption in the central government had become a thing of the past, Jaitley said that this is happening in states as well.
“India’s confidence as a nation has increased tremendously in last few years,” he said.
He said remonetisation following demonetisation last year has been successfully completed. “There is positive mood towards digitisation. As far as black money, benami transactions, etc. are concerned, it is no more safe in India to deal in excessive cash.”
Speaking on bad loans of banks, he said, “Banks have done excessive lending in the past. Proposal of capital adequacy of the banks is also on the table.”
On divestment, Jaitley said that the government had an ambitious target in the current fiscal.
“Even today, we have Air India divestment meeting. In the last few years, the market was quite volatile at times, so the government had to wait for the right time for divestment. As far as divestment is concerned, we never had any reservations about privatisation,” he said.
Touching upon the issue of technical glitches under the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the Finance Minister advised the traders to file their returns four to five days in advance before the due date to avoid last minute problems.
As far as bringing more items under the GST is concerned, he said that real estate would be the most easy to bring in.
“So far we have been able to contain inflation impact post GST. Present government has taken quick decisions whether it is implementing GST or targeting subsidies are concerned,” he said.
On Universal Basic Income (UBI), the Finance Minister said that he was in favour of it personally but a level of political maturity was required.
As far as farm loan waiver by states is concerned, they have to find their own resources for this purpose, he said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Employment, Government Jobs, News, Politics, Private Jobs
Arun Jaitley
New Delhi : The Union Cabinet on Wednesday decided to merge into five entities all the 17 government printing presses across the country without causing any job losses.
The decision about the “merger and modernization” of the “underworked” printing presses was taken in a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the move would enable the government to take some 468 acres of land into the central pool.
He said surplus employees at any printing press would be “redeployed”.
“All the jobs will be protected,” the Minister said.
These printing presses are located in Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, West Bengal, Chandigarh, Odisha and Karnataka.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, Markets, Networking, News, Online Marketing, Politics, Technology
New Delhi : Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will launch Google’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-based digital payment service called “Tez” on Monday, making India’s digital payment ecosystem war even more competitive.
“FM Shri @arunjaitley to launch the Google Digital Payment app ‘TEZ’ on Monday, 18th September, 2017 in the national capital,” the Finance Ministry confirmed in a tweet on Saturday.
The report of Google entering India’s fast growing digital payment ecosystem appeared in the media on Thursday, following which Google India sent out an invite for an event in New Delhi on September 18.
“As we continue to make strides in ensuring that our products continue to serve the needs of everyone, we invite you to a press conference to share details on the launch of a new product developed grounds up for India,” the invite read.
“Tez” (meaning fast in Hindi) may work like Android Pay.
UPI is a payment system launched by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and regulated by the Reserve Bank of India which facilitates the instant fund transfer between two bank accounts on the mobile platform.
The other big player to join India’s growing digital payment market is Facebook-owned WhatsApp.
WhatsApp has been in the news for working towards a UPI-based interface on its platform.
According to media reports, the leading messaging platform is already in talks with the NPCI and a few banks to facilitate financial transactions via UPI.
According to the blog website “WABetaInfo”, WhatsApp is giving shape to its plans towards bank-to-bank transfer using the UPI system.
Some mobile messaging platforms like WeChat and Hike Messenger already support UPI-based payment services.
The infrastructure of digital payments in India is expected to increase three-fold by the end of 2017 with almost five million electronic point of sale (PoS) machines, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has said.
“We expect that by December, the number will actually go up to five million PoS, which means that the infrastructure for digital payments is going to grow three times in the short span of one year,” MeitY Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Finance, News, Politics
New Delhi : Twentyfour years after its introduction in the government, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday decided to extend the concept of creamy layer in OBC reservations to Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and financial institutions.
The Cabinet, which had last week raised the annual income ceiling of Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh for eligibility for reservations for Other Backward Classes, decided on extending the concept at its meeting on Wednesday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the media.
He said even though the government had decided the criteria for deciding the creamy layer on the basis of income and status in 1993, the concept of creamy layer itself was not implemented in PSUs and financial institutions like banks and insurance companies.
“Now, on the advice of the Group of Ministers, the cabinet has given its approval” to implement it, Jaitley said.
“Now the same limit of Rs 8 lakhs, which is applicable on central government, will also be applicable on PSUs and financial institutions,” he said.
“With regards to status, candidates whose parents hold constitutional posts or group A and B posts are excluded,” Jaitley said.
The minister said that with these decisions, the benefits will spread more widely in the OBC community.
“This will ensure that the children of those serving in lower categories in PSUs and other institutions can get the benefit of OBC reservations, on par with children of people serving in lower categories in government,” an official statement said.
“This will also prevent children of those in senior positions in such institutions — who, owing to absence of equivalence of posts, may have been treated as non-creamy layer — from cornering government posts reserved for OBCs and denying the genuine non-creamy layer candidates a level playing field,” it added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Employment, Government Jobs, News, Politics
New Delhi : The creamy layer ceiling for Other Backward Classes candidates for securing government jobs was on Wednesday raised to Rs 8 lakh as the union cabinet cleared a proposal for a commission to work out sub-categorisation within OBCs for a “more equitable distribution of reservation benefits”.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said after a cabinet meeting here that OBC families earning up to Rs 8 lakh per annum will not be considered in the creamy layer. Earlier, this ceiling was Rs 6 lakh per annum.
“The cabinet was apprised that the creamy layer criterion limit has been raised to Rs 8 lakh annually for the central government,” he said.
Asked if the raised limit will also be applicable to public sector undertakings, Jaitley said the issue was under “active consideration of the government”.
Jaitley said the cabinet approved a proposal for setting up of a commission under article 340 of the Constitution to examine the issue of sub-categorisation of the OBCs.
He said the commission will examine the extent of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation among the castes or communities included in the broad category of OBCs, with reference to the OBCs included in the Central list.
It will work out the mechanism and parameters for sub-categorisation within such OBCs, identify the respective castes or communities or sub-castes in the central list of OBCs and classify them into their respective sub-categories.
“With this, those in the broad category of OBCs who were till now devoid of benefits of reservation, will get the benefits. There will be more equitable distribution,” he said.
The commission will submit its report within 12 weeks from the date of appointment of the Chairperson.
Jaitley said the National Commission for Backward Classes had given its recommendation in 2011 that there should be sub-categorisaion and the Parliamentary Standing Committee had also given such a recommendation.
The Supreme Court, in its November 1992 order, had observed that there is no Constitutional or legal bar to a state categorising backward classes as backward or more backward.
The Minister said 11 states have already implemented the sub-categorisation for state level services. These are Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Haryana, Karnataka, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Jammu and Kashmir (for Jammu region).
On whether the government is going to review the reservation mechanism, Jaitley said: “There is no such proposal… there will be no review.”
On caste census, Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawarchand Gehlot, who was also present at the press meet, said the information about the census is with the Home Ministry.
He said the central OBC list has over 5,000 castes and communities.
—IANS
