The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Mandating cos to give money for social work not advisable: Mukesh RIL Chairman says CSR initiatives should not be treated as charity Tribune News Service New Delhi, July 10 Mukesh Ambani, chairman, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) today said that fixing percentage of profits for corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending is not a good idea. There has been a huge debate in India over linking profits to CSR activities and opinion has been divided on this. The guidelines released by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs reently have also not made CSR activities for corporates mandatory, but asked for financial reporting of these activities in the annual reports. Ambani speaking on the role of CSR at an event here today said that corporate giving should not be for publicity. Ambani, who is among the richest Indians in the world had not been part of the corporate big wigs who had met Warren Buffett and Bill Gates when they had come to India on a philanthropic exercise to persuade promoters to give away their wealth to charity. Ambani also said that CSR cannot be understood in isolation of the ecosystem. Referring to differences in the social environment, he said that understanding CSR as charity was a Western construct. He outlined the idea that CSR needs to be taken up by business in such a way that it adds value to the business and is not treated as charity. On growth in the economy, he said that growth has to be inclusive and equitable and communities need to be made self sustaining and independent. Ambani also emphasised the role of skill development in the society and said there was a huge need for it as the Indian economy is growing. RIL plans over Rs 1 lakh crore investment: Report New Delhi: Reliance Industries may invest more than Rs 1,00,000 crore in various businesses in next few years, but concerns still remain about use of cash flow by the billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate, a report has said. The mega investment plan has been outlined in an equity research report by global investment banking major Morgan Stanley, which is advisor in BP's proposed partnership with RIL. — PTI
	Lobbying won’t help us against US protectionism: KV Kamath Shubhadeep Choudhury/TNS Bangalore, July 10 KV Kamath, Chairman-elect of Infosys, has said lobbying with the US government would not help Indian companies against US protectionism. Answering a query, Kamath, who is slated to take over as Chairman of Infosys from next month, said to survive the US protectionism, Indian companies must make themselves “indispensable” to their US clients. “Look at China. The US will continue to have products manufactured in China because in the US it cannot be done so cheap. Lobbying can help only in the short term. It cannot be a permanent answer to protectionism,” he said and added that Indian companies must abide by the laws and regulations of the US government while doing business in that country. He added that Indian knowledge industry, including the IT industry, was having a huge potential as India had the largest talent pool in the world. According to Kamath, there is a huge opportunity for the IT industry to grow further as technology is gradually touching the everyday life of common people (like the unique identification number), besides being heavily deployed by business houses for running their operations. When his attention was drawn to the recent shifting of the Mumbai call centre of a UK-based telecom firm to the UK as a cost-cutting measure, Kamath said it was an isolated incident. He said it would take a long time for the wage structure in India to become alarming for foreign employers. He said three steps needed to curtail black money were to raise the level of awareness of people on the issue, to punish the guilty and never to “slacken the process” of punishing people who are guilty of corruption. “We have so far done the first part only,” he said.
	MNP requests up 24% in May Girja Shankar Kaura Tribune News Service New Delhi, July 10 The growing disenchantment of subscribers with the telecom operators was visible in the sudden jump in the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) requests in May as the number of subscribers jumped by over 13.30 million in April. TRAI stattistics show MNP requests jumped nearly 24 per cent in May to 105.70 lakh subscribers from 85.41 lakh in April. The data showed that a total of 105.70 lakh subscribers had submitted requests until May to different service providers under MNP, a service that allows people to change operators while retaining the number. Gujarat continued to lead the subscribers wanting to change, while retaining their number with as many as 10.53 lakh requests. Haryana, where the service was first launched in November last year, has seen just 6.32 lakh requests. Rajasthan followed Gujarat in MNP requests with 8.25 lakh subscribers seeking a change and was followed by Karnataka (7.95 lakh) and Tamil Nadu (7.74 lakh). According to May visitor location register (VLR) data, the number of active mobile users were only 588.13 million, against the total subscriber base of 840.28 million. VLR numbers provide details on active customers at any given point of time, excluding switched-off and out-of-coverage area customers. Finally, relief from pesky calls in sight New Delhi: Finally, over 800 million telecom users may get relief from unwarranted calls and SMSes, with the DoT slated to announce a dedicated landline number series that can be used to identify telemarketers within a month. "The Department of Telecom has sorted the issue to allot the number series for landline consumers with the security agencies. Now, its a matter of another one month that consumers will get much-needed relief from the unsolicited calls and SMSes," a senior Telecom Ministry official said. Telecom regulator TRAI, to put a check on unsolicited calls and SMSes, had asked the DoT to allocate an easily identifiable number series for telemarketing companies. While a series beginning with '140' was allocated to mobile services, a separate identifiable number series for landline numbers hasn't been allocated yet. The DoT had pointed out various technical, billing and security concerns in issuing a number series for landline services. — PTI
	Sonalika plans to open a new plant in South India Chandigarh, July 10 Targeting further penetration in the growing tractors' market, Punjab-based International Tractors Limited (ITL), which sells Sonalika brand of tractors, plans to set up a new manufacturing plant next year in southern India at an estimated investment of Rs 100 crore. The new facility has been conceptualised to expand ITL's share of the southern Indian tractor market in its total sales volumes to 15 per cent from 5 per cent in the next two years. "We have identified three states, including Karnataka, Chennai and Andhra Pradesh, for setting up a new tractor manufacturing facility in one of these states and we have written to these states for allotting land to us for our proposed facility," Sonalika Group Chairman LD Mittal said. Sonalika Group has proposed to set up the new tractor facility on 25 acres with an installed capacity of 25,000 tractors per annum. The company has an installed capacity for manufacturing 55,000 to 60,000 tractors a year.. "We want to scale up this capacity to 100,000 tractors per annum in a phased manner," he said. — PTI
	Tax Advice Medical reimbursement up to Rs 15,000 tax-free by SC Vasudeva Q: Please clarify whether fixed medical allowance given to state government employees/pensioners is taxable or not? (ii) Similarly whether LTC given to state government pensioners once in block of 2 years, equivalent to one basic pension is taxable or not? —Virender Gupta A: (i) Fixed medical allowance would ordinarily be taxable. However, in case it can be proved that such allowance is to meet the actual expenditure incurred on medical expenses of yourself and your family and is in the nature of reimbursement of medical expenditure, the same would not be treated as a perquisite to the extent of Rs 15,000 per year provided the expenditure as incurred is duly supported. (ii) The amount of Leave Travel Concession would be exempt from tax provided the same has actually been incurred for travel of the former employee and his family in connection with his proceeding on leave any place in India. The exemption available under Rule 2B of Income-tax Rules 1962 is in respect of two journeys performed in a block of four calendar years. Tax on FDs Q: I deposited some amounts on different dates for 555 days @9.75 per cent being a senior citizen. I am a retd. teacher i.e. pensioner. I have submitted/will submit Form 15H to the SBI, Mandi Area, Hoshiarpur within two days along with photocopy of my PAN Card. Please let me know as to how much income tax will be deducted from FDs or will I be exempted. All this amount is my principal savings of my pension plus interest on it. —BaldevRaj A. The bank is required to deduct tax @ 10 per cent plus education cess of 3 per cent thereon on the amount of interest payable to a depositor. In case Form 15H is filed by you with the bank, the bank should not deduct tax on the amount of interest payable to you. NRO account Q. My son went to the USA in June 2010 and is doing residency in medicine. His wife and two children went along with him. 1. Is it necessary to convert their saving a/c into NRO/NRI a/c. 2. How much money can he/she repatriate to the US from theirsavings/NRO/NRI a/c in a year. — Aditya Arora A. (a) In accordance with the provisions of Foreign Exchange Management Act 1999 (FEMA), a person is considered to be resident outside India, if he is not a resident in India. A person resident in India means a person who is residing in India for more than 182 days during the course of the preceding financial year but does not include a person who has gone out of India or who stays outside India in either case: (i) for or on taking up employment outside India, or (ii) for carrying on outside India a business or vacation outside India, or (iii) for any other purpose in such circumstances as would indicate his intention to stay outside India for an uncertain period. In your case, your son, daughter-in-law and their children were not residing in India in 2010-11 for more than 182 days. Since the wife and children of your son have also gone with him, it may be possible to conclude that your son has gone with an intention to stay out of India for an uncertain period. If that be the case, it would be necessary to convert his savings account into NRO i.e. Non- resident Ordinary Account. (b) As far as India is concerned, there is no limit with regard to the receipt of amount from your son.