 |
|
|
Nation has a date with VAT on April 1
26 Punjab PSUs face disinvestment axe
Haryana slaps purchase tax notice in Karnal
NTPC spurns GAIL’s ‘unsolicited’ offer
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
$10-m Chile deal peps up i-flex
Murthy opposes quota in private sector
Capital Bank net soars
|
|
Nation has a date with VAT on April 1 New Delhi, June 18 “After going through the entire interactions, we can happily say that there is a broad consensus among states to introduce state-level VAT beginning April 1, 2005,” Chairman of the Empowered Committee on VAT and Finance Minister of West Bengal Asim Dasgupta told newspersons. The new deadline for implementing a nation-wide VAT was arrived a meeting of the state finance ministers with Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram here. Central Sales Tax (CST), which is presently fixed at four per cent, will be reduced to two per cent and eventually be eliminated to establish conformity with the new system. No timeframe, however, has been fixed for eliminating CST. The resultant loss in the revenue to states in moving over to the new regime will be compensated for by the Centre and the package would be hammered out after the conclusion of the Budget session of Parliament. Mr Dasgupta said the broad consensus among states on the new deadline was based upon certain “comforting” statements made by Mr Chidambaram on the issue of compensating the states on revenue loss, which convinced the state governments who earlier had reservations about the introduction of the new system. A three-tier system has been proposed under the new system with small traders with an annual turnover of less than Rs 5 lakh will be exempted from VAT. Those with the turnover between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 40 lakh will be charged at the rate of one per cent as VAT tax. Traders with an annual turnover of Rs 40 lakh will be come under the purview of the comprehensive VAT. A few thorny issues, especially the one pertaining to the service tax bill remain unaddressed. While the 95th Constitutional Amendment Bill allows the Union Government to levy service tax, no decision has been taken on how to distribute the bill among the states and the Central government. Haryana Finance Minister Sampat Singh pointed out that according to the draft Service Tax Bill, there were certain services for which states were already charging sales tax, but the introduction of the service tax these fall under the Central list. This would adversely affect the revenue of the states. The West Bengal Finance Minister said a decision was yet to be taken on the service tax bill, which will enable States to levy tax on services. Introduction of VAT has missed several deadlines, the last one being April 1, 2003, ostensibly on political considerations. The Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers had endorsed the suggestion that every state legislation on VAT should have a minimum set of common features. Accordingly, a model VAT Bill was circulated to all states and it was decided that the VAT legislations all states and UTs would have common provisions in respect of all important matters and that a simple VAT legislation with maximum convergence would be implemented.
|
|
26 Punjab PSUs face disinvestment axe
Chandigarh, June 18 Finance Minister Lal Singh, in reply to a question on the state’s disinvestment policy, which was posed by Manpreet Singh Badal of Shiromani Akali Dal and Ashok Kumar (Congress), said the report of the Disinvestment Commission for Public Sector Units, submitted in October 2002, was under consideration of the government. The Commission was constituted by the erstwhile SAD-BJP coalition government, headed by Mr Parkash Singh Badal in 2001. He said as a first priority, the disinvestment of entire 44.26 per cent share holding of the Punjab State Industrial Development Corporation (PSIDC) in Punjab Alkalies and Chemicals Limited(PACL), entire 69.79 per share holding of Infotech in Punjab Communication Limited (Puncom) and entire share holding of Punjab Tourism Development Corporation Limited as also of the Punjab State Container and Warehousing Corporation Limited (Conware) were being undertaken on fast track. He said the entire 23.49 per cent share holding of PSIDC in Punjab Tractors Limited (PTL) had been disinvested. As a result, the PSIDC had received Rs 218.30 crore. Mr Lal Singh said it had been decided to pay for VRS to the employees of the Electronics Systems Punjab Ltd (ESPL) and sell its assets.
— UNI |
|
ESPL, Punjab Information and Communication Technology Corporation Ltd, Puncom, Punjab Recorders Ltd, Punjab Bio-Medical Equipment Ltd, Punjab Electro Optics Systems Ltd, Punjab Power Packs Ltd, Inter-magnetic India Ltd, Zimag India Ltd, Punjab Financial Corporation, Punjab State Cooperative Sugar Mills Federation (Sugarfed), Spinfed, Punjab State Handloom Weavers Apex Cooperative Society Ltd, Punjab State Container and Warehousing Corporation Ltd, Punjab State Civil Supplies Corporation Ltd (Punsup), Punjab Agro Industries Coporation, Punjab Agri-Export Corporation, Punjab State Tubewell Corporation, Punjab Land Development and Reclamation Corporation, Punjab State Forest Development Corporation, Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC), Punjab State Bus Stand Management Company Ltd, Punjab Health Systems Corporation and Punjab Tourism Development Corporation.
|
|
Haryana slaps purchase tax notice in Karnal Karnal, June 18 The E&T department has asked the existing rice mills to deposit 50 per cent of their outstanding amount with the department on or before June 30, otherwise, the process to attach their properties for recovery would be initiated as per the legal norms. As per the notice, the balance 50 per cent would have to be deposited by the end of December, this year. The recovery proceedings had been initiated under the Land Revenue Act. A senior official of the department told TNS that 82 rice mills had been closed in the past few years in the district without clearing their dues. They still owe Rs 6.53 crore as ‘purchase tax’ to the government. “Warrants have been issued against the owners of these rice mills to attach their properties for recovery,” said the official. It may be mentioned that the rice mills in the form of groups had collectively gone to the High Court and Supreme Court seeking exemption from purchase tax but lost the legal battles. The Supreme Court dismissed the last pending petition of M/s Monga Rice Mills and others versus State of Haryana (No. 3674-3710 of 2002) April, this year, giving relief to the State Government. The validity of a provision of the Haryana General Sales Tax Act, identifying paddy and rice as two different commodities for levying tax on rice for export was challenged in the Supreme Court by rice mills on the ground that the state had no jurisdiction or competence to pass such a legislation but the millers ultimately lost the legal battles in the High Court and even in the Supreme Court. They had challenged the constitutional validity of such a provision in the Act. |
|
NTPC spurns GAIL’s ‘unsolicited’ offer
New Delhi, June 18 GAIL had offered to transport the gas from Reliance Industries’ gigantic D6 field off the Andhra coast to NTPC’s Kawas and Gandhar power plants in Gujarat at $ 0.40 per mBtu as against the $ 0.48 per mBTU quoted by RIL in its winning tender to supply 4 billion cubic meters of gas a year at $ 2.97 dollars per mBTU. NTPC has ignored GAIL’s “unsolicited” offer and on June 16 awarded the Letter of Intent for the supply contract to RIL, industry sources said. Reliance offered NTPC gas from Krishna-Godavari basin at $ 2.70 per million BTU plus $ 0.48 per mBtu for piping the gas from Kakinada to Gujarat. A senior NTPC official said “there is no place for unsolicited bids in the tendering guidelines framed for the public sector. Such bids are absolutely not acceptable after the tender bids are opened. “GAIL did not participate in the open tender and is offering a transportation tariff lower than that of Reliance after we opened the bids and the lowest bid was known.”
Max to be phased out Two-wheeler maker TVS Motor Company today said it plans to replace two-stroke motor cycle, Max, with a four-stroke entry-level motor cycle within six months to arrest the erosion in sales. “We are planning to launch an entry-level motor cycle. The four-stroke motor cycle, which will replace the Max range of motor cycles should be out in less than six months,” TVS Motor Co. Vice-President (Marketing) Harish Krishnamachar said. Now, 90 per cent of the production is of four-stroke motor cycles. The Chennai-based firm recorded blockbuster sales with the launch of 110 cc motorcycle ‘Victor’, but for almost one year, ‘Max’ has been pulling down the overall motor cycle sales of TVS.
NHPC net up National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) today announced a 22 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 621.38 crore in 2003-04 while outlining a massive investment plan of Rs 25,000 crore in next three years to achieve the target of adding 4357 MW in the 10th plan. “Of the total plan outlay of over Rs 32,000 crore, the corporation has already invested about Rs 7,000 crore and has added 1400 MW. Three more projects totalling 1,170 MW capacity would be commissioned in the current financial year,” Mr Yogendra Prasad, CMD of NHPC told reporters. For capacity expansion during the 10th plan and required funds, NHPC would be getting budgetary support of Rs 14,200 crore of which about Rs 4,000 crore have already been pumped in, he said.
— TNS & Agencies |
$10-m Chile deal peps up i-flex
Mumbai, June 18 The size of the order is over $10-million and the duration of the implementation will be 18 to 24 months. The i-flex team commenced the project on September 2003 and has completed the initial project groundwork at the bank, including study and analysis of the bank’s requirements. The team will begin the next phase of the project to implement the core banking solution that covers a number of retail banking activities, ranging from general ledger that offers multiple views of the information to support the bank’s multiple reporting structures and functional modules including loans, current and savings account.
Intel chips Intel Corp., the world’s largest semiconductor maker, will unveil today a set of chips it hopes will stem slowing sales growth by wooing computer buyers with advanced graphics and quality sound. The chips, codenamed Grantsdale, are the first major chipset upgrade in 10 years and will be sold with the fastest Pentium processor, said Bill Calder, spokesman for Santa Clara, California-based Intel. Intel, whose integrated circuits run more than 80 per cent of the world’s PCs, is releasing chips such as Grantsdale to enhance the semiconductors that work with its main processor.
— Agencies |
|
Murthy opposes quota in private sector New Delhi, June 18 While opposing reservation in the private sector, he asked the government to exit from higher education, adding it must be left to the private players to create the infrastructure needed to make IT a $ 70-billion industry by 2008. He was speaking after presenting the EMPI-AMIC Lifetime Achievement Award to former Telecom Commission Chairman N.
Vittal.
|
|
Capital Bank net soars Chandigarh, June 18 Having started its operations on January 14, 2000, Capital Local Area Bank has registered the highest credit-deposit ratio (CD ratio) of 60.04 per cent in its area of operation. The bank has opened 12 branches and widened its customer base to more than 40,000 in short span of four years. The bank will open a branch in Jalandhar. It will be operational by September 30, 2004. |
bb
Inflation 5.55 pc Bank guarantee IDM Fruit purchase No salary EIL dividend PNB meet Ranbaxy lab |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
