Buyback of WPI-Linked Inflation Indexed Bond

Buyback of WPI-Linked Inflation Indexed Bond

The Government of India has announced the repurchase of “1.44 per cent Inflation Indexed Government Stock-2023” through reverse auction for an aggregate amount of Rs. 6,500 crore (face value).

The repurchase by the Government of India will be undertaken to redeem the Government Stocks prematurely by utilizing surplus cash balances. The above repurchase of the Government Stocks is purely ad hoc in nature.

Auction for securities will be on price based auction format. The auctions will be conducted using multiple price method. Bids for the auction should be submitted in electronic format on the Reserve Bank of India Core Banking Solution (E-Kuber) system on February 11, 2016 (Thursday) between 10.30 a.m. and 12.00 noon. The result of the auctions will be announced on the same day.

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FM: India continues to be one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but there is still potential to grow at a much faster pace; more incentives to agriculture sector for increasing both agriculture production and productivity.

The Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley said that India continues to be one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but there is still potential to grow at a much faster pace. He said that the world economy is passing through an uncertain and fragile situation. The Finance Minister said that all the major economic organisations including IMF have predicted low growth for the world economy in the coming year. He said that these developments have implications on India’s economy as our exports are also affected .However, he further added that silver lining is low international commodities and oil prices which in turn has helped in better macroeconomic situation of the country.The Finance Minister said that the agriculture growth in the last two years has suffered mainly due to insufficient monsoons. Shri Jaitely said that highest ever amount was given to the States for drought relief during the current financial year 2015-16 and more incentives will be given to agriculture sector for increasing agriculture production and productivity. The Finance Minister was making the Opening Remarks at the First Meeting of the Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry of Finance during inter-session of Parliament held here today. The Subject of the Meeting was “Suggestions for Budget”.

The Finance Minister Shri Jaitley further said that loan worth over Rs. 90 crores has been already disbursed in the current financial year so far to more than 2 crore micro, small and medium enterprises under MUDRA Scheme. The Finance Minister said that we will be able to contain the fiscal deficit as per the target fixed for the current financial year 2015-16. The Finance Minister said that this was also the first time that the real expenditure amount was higher than the Budget proposal. He further added that this year we have spent more but still, we will very well manage our deficit targets. He said that during the financial year 2016-17, the Central Government has to make provision for about Rs.1.10 lakh crore in order to meet the liabilities on account of implementation of Seventh Pay Commission recommendations and One Rank One Pension (OROP) Scheme.

Thereafter, various suggestions were given by the Members of Consultative Committee who participated in today’s Meeting. Some of the major suggestions include more allocation for agriculture sector, setting-up of Indian Council for Veterinary Research (ICVR) at par with ICAR and ICMR in order to give boost to milk production etc. They appreciated the Union Government’s new crop insurance scheme but proposed to bring more clarity in the scheme, need to increase the awareness about the scheme and to make it more comprehensive so that it reaches to larger section of population.

Another suggestion made was that the forthcoming budget may give relief to industries to set-up sewage and affluent treatment plants in order to keep the environment clean. Other suggestions include more allocation for Drip Irrigation System to save water and promotion for use of improved varieties of seeds for crops to increase productivity.

It was also suggested by various members that tax exemption limit for middle and salaried class be raised from existing Rs. 2.5 lakhs to Rs. 4 lakhs as well as more stress be given on widening of tax base and severe punishment for those evading taxes. It was also suggested that threshold limit for mandatory Pan Card requirement for any transaction above Rs. 2.00 lakh be raised to Rs. 5.00 lakhs. It was suggested that service tax exemption limit be raised from Rs. 10 lakhs to Rs. 25 lakhs sale receipts and skill development related education institutions be exempted from service tax. Some members suggested that there should be accountability of assessing officers for passing unreasonably high tax liability orders to harass the assesses which are later on turned down by the Appellate authorities.

Another suggestion made was that since Indian economy is agro economy, therefore, agriculture oriented budget be presented this year. Higher allocations should be made to improve the agriculture related irrigation projects in different States which are in bad shape. It was suggested that skill development programmes be implemented effectively at block level in order to penetrate at grass root level and to make the Start-up India and Make in India programmes successful both in reality and spirit. It was also suggested that special package for fluoride affected areas and redesigning of MGNREGA be done in order to make it more effective. There was also suggestion to change the labour ratio in MNERGA such that it can be more productive and used for infrastructure building along with providing jobs.

Some members raised that more focus be given for providing employment opportunities in rural areas, increasing agriculture productivity and increase in agriculture credit at cheaper rate; more provision for education, skill development and residential houses for fishing community. It was also suggested that forthcoming budget be poor and common man oriented and should make higher provision for removing child malnutrition among others. There was also suggestion that the funds from CSR must be directed to be used in developing the area where the company is functioning and making profits. There was also suggestion to give tax incentive to MSMEs for their betterment which, in turn, would help in creating more employment opportunities.

Along with the Union Finance Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley, Shri Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Finance, the Members of the Consultative Committee who participated in the Meeting include Shri Dilip Kumar Mansukhlal Gandhi, Shri J. Jayasingh Thyagraj Natterjee, Shri P.P. Chaudhary, Smt. Poonam Mahajan, Shri Ram Charitra Nishad, Shri Sharad Kumar Maruti Bansode, Shri Subhash Chandra, Smt. Supriya Sadanand Sule, Dr. Udit Raj (all members of Lok Sabha); Shri Anil Desai, Dr. K.P. Ramalingam and Shri Rajkumar Doot (all members of Rajya Sabha) .

Among the officers who attended the Consultative Committee Meeting include Shri Ratan P. Watal, Finance Secretary, Shri Shaktikanta Das, Secretary, DEA, Dr. Hasmukh Adhia, Revenue Secretary, Ms. Anjuly Chib Dugal, Secretary, Financial Services, Shri Neeraj Kumar Gupta, Secretary, Disinvestment, Dr. Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA), Chairman, CBEC Shri Najib Shah and other senior officers of the Ministry of Finance.

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State Bank of Patiala contributes Rs.2.36 crores to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund for Chennai Rain Victims

On behalf of the employees of the State Bank of Patiala, Shri S. A. Ramesh Rangan, Managing Director, State Bank of Patiala along with the General Manager (RNW-Delhi) Shri. M V Krishna presented a cheque of Rs. 2.36 crores to the Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley in his office here today, towards their contribution to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund for helping the victims of recent catastrophe due to torrential rains at Chennai and other national priorities. The donation is manifestation of the concern of Fifteen Thousand employees of the bank, who donated their one day salary to help the affected persons.

The Bank had recently felicitated the National Bravery Award Winners as part of Republic Day celebrations and also donated Ambulances to Red Cross and Blind School towards the Corporate Social Responsibility programmes.

The donation to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund was accepted by the Finance Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley who lauded the efforts of the bank for rising to the occasion and thanked the bank, its staff and officers for standing-up with the people of Chennai and Government of India at time of such crisis.

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Steps taken by Income Tax Department for safeguarding taxpayers from Phishing emails

The Income Tax Department has been at the forefront of using technology in implementing its –e-Governance initiatives. Most of its routine communication to taxpayers is through email and SMS. Therefore, the Department is very sensitive and alert to attempts made by fraudsters to spoof the Department’s identity to send phishing emails. To ensure that taxpayers are aware that the Department does not seek any confidential or financial information of the taxpayer over email, the below mentioned advisory has been prominently displayed on the national website:

“The Income Tax Department NEVER asks for your PIN numbers, passwords or similar access information for credit cards, banks or other financial accounts through e-mail.

The Income Tax Department appeals to taxpayers NOT to respond to such e-mails and NOT to share information relating to their credit card, bank and other financial accounts.”

The Do’s and Don’t’s to ensure that the gullible taxpayers do not inadvertently play into the hands of fraudsters are clearly mentioned on the website: http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/Pages/report-phishing.aspx. All taxpayer reports of phishing emails are forwarded to incident@cert-in.org.in which is a Government of India agency mandated to fight against such threats.

Further, the Department has implemented best practices such as SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) for its email domains. Use of these protocols enables the e-mail receiver domains such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc to determine whether or not a received e-mail is actually from the defined sender such as the Department and block phishing emails from reaching the taxpayer.

Taxpayers are advised to follow these simple checks if they do receive any email purporting to be from the Income Tax Department:

Check for the domain name carefully. Fake emails will have misspelt or incorrect sounding variants of websites of the Income Tax Department.
Check the message header – for example in Gmail it can be viewed by selecting the option ‘Show Original’.
Do not open such emails in spam or junk folder and do not reply to such emails.
Do not open any attachments. Attachments may contain malicious code.
Do not click on any links. Even if you have clicked on links inadvertently in a suspicious e-mail or phishing website then do not enter confidential information like bank account, credit card details.
Do not cut and paste the link from the message into your browsers.
Forward the phishing emails to incident@cert-in.org.in with a request to examine and block the sender.
Use anti-virus software, anti spyware, and a firewall and keep them updated.