November 5, 2017

Tag: Finance, Regulator

1.    Shell firms banks accounts seized

1. These companies’ bank accounts have been frozen.
2. State governments told to restrict sales and transfers of real estate assets owned by these entities.
3. Comes after the observing of the deposited & withdrew of Rs 17,000 crore after demonetisation
4. Earlier
   1. Identified 224,000 shell companies and begun action against these
   2. screening chartered accountants and company secretaries associated with these companies.

• Directors on the boards of these companies have been disqualified from having such positions.

1. About 3,000 of these were directors in more than 20 companies each, beyond the legal limit,

1. To check the suspected money laundering via such companies –
   1. such keeping a check on ‘dummy’ directors by connecting the director identification number with Aadhaar, the citizen identification number, and the permanent account number. Existing directors and new ones will have to comply.
   2. An ‘early warning system’ has to be overseen by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO).

• Change in rules to limit the number of subsidiaries a company may have — no more than two layers
  1. This will apply prospectively but existing companies have to disclose details of their entire list of subsidiaries to the registrar of companies within 150 days.
  2. Banks and insurance companies are excluded from this.

1. Also, the director, additional directors, or assistant directors of the SFIO were recently authorised to arrest any person believed to be guilty of any fraud punishable under the Companies Act.

 

Tag: Finance, Banking, NPA

2.    Ranking of number of cases under insolvency law

 

1. While the valuations of the stressed assets landing with the IBC regime may be the maximum for steel, the number of cases is small(15)
2. In terms of geographical coverage, Delhi saw the maximum of 62 cases, followed by Mumbai 59, Chennai 40, Kolkata 23 and Hyderabad 16, since the IBC became effective from December 2016, the paper said.

 

Tag: Economics, Finance, Public Sector Reforms, Privatization, Energy, Infrastructure

3. Govt to give 60% stake in 15 fields — 11 of ONGC & four of OIL to private firms

1. The fields would be auctioned and any firm committing the maximum capital investment within 10 years of the contract award
2. Nearly 25 years after ONGC’s prime discovered oilfields were privatised, the oil ministry has identified 11 more producing oil and gas fields of the state-run firm for handing over to private firms to raise output.
3. A policy change is required for this and the ministry is approaching the Cabinet for the same
   1. As the current policy allows giving out of participating interest (PI) or a stake to a private company only in the blocks or areas awarded in open auctions under New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) since 1999
4. All of these fields are in blocks or areas that were given to the national oil companies on nomination basis and the current policy does not allow private firms taking equity stake in a nomination block
5. Only exploration acreage was auctioned under global bidding in such rounds. All areas prior to that were given to ONGC and OIL on a nomination basis.
6. Target: to cut oil import dependence by 10 per cent by 2022 over 77 per cent dependence in 2014-15. But presently, the dependence has only increased and is now over 80 %
7. History
   1. Privatisation a repeat of infamous round the one seen in 1992-93 when 28 fields were given to now-defunct Enron Corp & RIL

• Medium sized discovered fields like Panna/Mukta and Tapti oil and gas field in the western offshore was given to now-defunct Enron Corp of the US and Reliance Industries.

 

Tag: Finance, e-Governance

4. Aadhaar-based attendance system for rail employees from January 31

1. Railway ministry also instructed that CCTV cameras be provided with the biometric machine

 

Tag: Economic, Agriculture

5. World Food Event:  Investments worth $11 bn committed during World Food India:

1. The US, the UAE, Germany, the Netherlands and France have announced the big amount of investments in the country’s food processing sector
2. Of which, about $2.5 billion worth of MoUs have been signed between state governments and stakeholders,
3. Punjab and Haryana have got the bulk of the investment.
4. Investments are promised in areas of food processing, beverages, logistics, wholesale and retailing, e-commerce, organic farming among others.
5. A Guinness World Records was also created by cooking 918 kg of Khichdi (traditional multi-grain dish) at the event.

 

Tag: Economic, Infrastructure

6.    NHAI paves way for easy land buy with sops to ex-officials

1. To speed up the pace of road construction, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has put in place an incentive mechanism for retired state government officials who are helping in getting land

7. No new projects without completion of land acquisition

1. Currently, only 70% of land needed to be acquired to start a project, which often led to stoppages and delays
2. This new policy also puts the onus on state governments to ensure that land is made available to the Railways if they want a new railway line
3. Officials said that there is cost escalation of around 10-15 per cent, every year due to such delays.

8. FAME India Scheme: Govt to give grants to cities buying electric vehicles for mass transport

1. The Centre has invited proposals from cities with population above 10 lakh for extending grants under the FAME India scheme to promote large-scale adoption of electric vehicles in multi-modal public transport.

TAG: Finance, GST

9. GST: Screening Committee checking up  Profiteering

1. Example : Kerala panel seeks action against 335 merchants for not passing on to consumers a reduction in price under the new set of levies.
2. The screening committee of the state has written to the standing committee at the Centre, providing a list of these merchants and evidence, demanding action

 

TAG: Finance, Economy, Banking, Fiscal Policy, Bank Recapitalization

10. PSU banks may get Rs 70,000 cr via recap bonds in 4 months

2. NPAs of PSBs alone have increased from Rs 2.75 lakh cr in March 2015 to Rs 7.33 lakh cr as on June 2017
3. Announced an unprecedented Rs 2.11 lakh crore two-year road map to strengthen public sector banks. The plan included recapitalisation bonds of Rs 1.35 lakh crore.
4. Government is in process of finalising the structure of bonds
5. Besides recapitalisation bonds, the finance minister had announced that banks would get about Rs 18,000 crore under the Indradhanush plan over the next two years.
6. In the last three-and-half years, the government has pumped in Rs 51,858 crore capital in the public sector banks.
7. Remaining Rs 18,142 crore would be pumped into banks over two years.