Monday, 18 July 2016
Tuesday, 24 May 2016
Rs. 800 cr. for postal payments bank
Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad has stated that the Centre would invest Rs.800 crore in the proposed India Post payments bank, which is expected to become operational by March next. Half of it would be from the Department of Posts/Centre and the remaining would be equity.
RBI clearance
An additional Rs.400 crore would be mobilised as equity for the payments bank, to which the Reserve Bank of India had already given clearance, the Minister said here on Sunday while speaking on the sidelines of the three-day annual conference of heads of circles of the Department of Posts.
The payments bank would also offer third-party services of about 50 Indian and overseas financial institutions including insurance products, mutual funds, banking instruments and debt-equity and the board of the bank would decide the modalities of extending such services. “World Bank, Citi Bank, Deutsch Bank, Barclays and several others have already expressed their intent to partner with the India Post payments bank”, the Minister said.
Financial inclusion
Stating that payments bank would become a big platform for financial inclusion in the country, the Union Minister said performance of the Department of Posts had improved considerably during the last two years. He pointed out that from 2 per cent negative growth in revenue from parcel service as part of e-commerce in 2013-14, it went up by 45 per in 2014-15 and by 81 per cent in 2015-16.
The CAG had termed India Post speed post service best courier service in the country and its revenue was up by 8 per cent during 2015-16 compared to the previous year. With 1,54,939 post offices across the country, including 1,29,379 in rural areas, the Department of Posts had played a key role in financial inclusion by having 85.28 lakh accounts with a deposit of over Rs.4,500 crore in Sukanya Samriddhi accounts against just 4 lakh accounts achieved by all other banks put together, Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
As part of digitisation and technological up-gradation, the department would soon introduce hand-held devices to 1.3 lakh rural postal staff for speedy and efficient banking, insurance and delivery services.
The Minister said 4,000 devices were already being used on pilot basis in six States including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.
World Bank, Citi Bank, ready to partner with India Post: Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad
Source : http://www.thehindu.com
Friday, 18 March 2016
7th Pay Commission notification to be issued after states polls
7th Pay Commission notification to be issued after states polls
New Delhi: The notification to put into effect the Seventh pay commission recommendation will be issued after the completion of states assemblies’ poll process as the model code of conduct is currently in place, sources of Finance Ministry said on Wednesday.
The assemblies’ election of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry states, which will be held from April 4 to May 16 and the counting of votes in the states will take place on May 19 but the model code of conduct will remain in place till May 21.
So, it is believed that the government will announce Seventh pay commission award after the end of model code of conduct of states assemblies election.
The government doesn’t want to give any chance to the Opposition to deter its image in the polls and hence, sources, said that the announcement of the dates of the the model code of conduct of states polls seems to be the cut-off point for notification of the Seventh pay commission award.
The Seventh pay commission recommendations will benefit 48 lakh central government employees and 52 lakh pensioners including dependents.
“The BJP led central government decided execution time of the pay commission’s proposals in April but the Empowered Committee of Secretaries headed by cabinet Secretary can’t sort out some anomalies of Seventh pay commission recommendations like scrapping of advances, allowances and minimum pay before declaration of states Assemblies polls,” sources said.
Sources also said the Implementation cell of the Empowered Committee of Secretaries for the Seventh pay commission recommendation in Finance Ministry works hard to send a summary of the pay commission implementation to PMO for its nod. After PMO’s nod, it would be placed before the cabinet for its nod through cabinet secretary.
Sources said the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations implementation notification will be issued in June, after cabinet nod.
The Seventh Pay Commission was set up by the UPA government in February 2014, The Commission headed by Justice A K Mathur submitted its 900-page final report to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on February 19, recommending 23.55 per cent hike in salaries and allowances of Central government employees and pensioners.
The panel recommended a 14.27 per cent increase in basic pay, the lowest in 70 years. The previous 6th Pay Commission had recommended a 20 per cent hike, which the government doubled while implementing it in 2008.
The Seventh pay commission recommended fixing the highest basic salary at Rs 250,000 and the lowest at Rs 18,000and its increased the pay gap between the minimum and maximum from existing 1:12 to 1: 13.8
The government constitutes the Pay Commission almost every 10 years to revise the pay scale of its employees and pensioners, often these are adopted by states after some modifications. However, the Seventh Pay Commission suggested to discontinue the practice of appointing pay commissions in future.
Read at The Sen Times (TST)
Tuesday, 8 March 2016
Rs 70,000 crore allocated for 7th pay commission in Budget 2016
As
much as Rs 70,000 crore has been provisioned in the Union Budget 2016-17 for
implementation of Seventh Pay Commission for government employees, a top
finance ministry official said.
While
the Budget did not provide an explicit overall provision number, the government
had said the 7th Pay Commission hike has been built in as interim allocation
for different ministries and Budget numbers were credible. Implementation
of the pay commission report in toto is to cost the government Rs
1.02 lakh crore.
Government rolls back proposal to Tax Provident Fund
New Delhi, Mar 8 (PTI) In the face of all round attack, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today completely rolled back the controversial proposal to tax the employees' provident fund (EPF) at the time of withdrawal.
Taking the first opportunity available, he made a suo motu statement in the Lok Sabha in which he also announced withdrawal of imposing monetary limit for contribution of employers to provident and superannuation fund of Rs 1.5 lakh for taking tax benefit.
Jaitley, however, left untouched the proposal tax exempt 40 per cent of National Pension Scheme and services provided by EPFO to employees.
"In view of the representations received, the government would like to do comprehensive review of this proposal and therefore I withdraw the proposals in para 138 and 139 on my budget speech. The proposal of 40 per cent exemption given to NPS subscribers at the time of withdrawal remains," the Minister said.
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