Page 14 - Banking Finance January 2018

ROUNDUP

Shipping Corporation of Uttar Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission hikes
India speeds up scrap- power tariff
ping of older ships Uttar Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) announced hike in
power tariff a day after the civic polls concluded in the
Shipping Corporation of India has in-
state, drawing flak from the opposition parties. The av-
creased the erage hike for domestic consumers, to be implemented
pace of soon, is 12%. UPERC chairman S.K. Agarwal told that
scrapping the electricity tariff for urban domestic electricity con-
older ships
sumers has been raised by 9%. For the metered rural
from its fleet
domestic consumers, the tariff has been hiked to Rs.3 per unit for first 100 units
as India's big- and Rs.4.50 per unit beyond that.
gest maritime carrier looks at ways
to prevent the company from slipping Lower debit card fees for small traders: RBI
into red after running a net loss of Rs.
82.90 crore in the first half of FY18. Small merchants will now have more reason to accept debit card payments. The
In the first half of FY17, the firm had RBI has fixed a lower merchant discount rate (MDR) - which
posted a net profit of Rs. 39.92 crore. refers to the fees paid to a bank on card payments - for
The first-half net loss was despite a businesses with a turnover of below Rs 20 lakh. Under the
new dispensation, a small merchant will pay only 0.40% of
rise in operating revenue to Rs. 1,673
the transaction value if his turnover for the previous year
crore from Rs. 1,584.71 crore in the
is below Rs 20 lakh.
year-ago period.
Petrol pumps records Direct tax mop up rises 14%

45% growth Direct tax collections increased by 14.4 per cent to Rs. 4.8 lakh crore during
April-November this financial year. "The provisional fig-
India has recorded a 45 percent ures of direct tax collections up to November 2017,
jump in the number of petrol pumps show that net collections are at Rs. 4.8 lakh crore,
in the last six years, possibly the high- which is 14.4 per cent higher than the net collections
est growth rate in the world, as pub- for the corresponding period of last year," the Central
lic and private sector firms jostled to Board of Direct Taxes said in a statement.
capture retailing sites, according to
data available with the Petroleum Disqualified directors, de-registered firms not to get
Planning & Analysis Cell of the oil
ministry. any relief
The Corporate Affairs Ministry has ruled out the possibility providing any relief
I-T survey of Indian for the 2.25 lakh de-registered companies and the 3.09
bitcoin exchanges lakh disqualified directors, stating that these actions
were caused by the "operation of law".
The income tax department carried
out surveys at "There is no proposal before us to provide any relief to
nine bitcoin ex- them. The only issue before us and taking our attention
changes across is to get the pending Companies (amendment) Bill en-
India, weeks af- acted by the Rajya Sabha," PP Choudhary, Minister of
ter the Su- State for Corporate Affairs, told.
preme Court sought the Centre and The Ministry had de-registered 2.25 lakh companies and disqualified as many as
RBI's response on the need to regu- 3.09 lakh directors for not filing financial statements for three years. Choudhary
late cryptocurrencies. Taxmen clari- said that the remedy for these two controversies is before the National Com-
fied that these were not raids, but pany Law Tribunal (in case of de-registered companies) and the High Courts (for
that tax evision could attract action. disqualification of directors).

14 | 2018 | JANUARY | BANKING FINANCE

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