Page 14 - BANKING FINANCE APRIL 2017

ROUNDUP

PM Modi calls for 'blue CAG asks Railways to revise passenger fares
revolution' along India's The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has asked the Railways to modify
passenger fares and restrict concessional
coastline passes to recover its operating cost in a conse-
The government will usher in a 'blue quential manner.
revolution' by de- "The Railways needs to revisit the passenger
veloping India's
and other coaching tariffs so as to recover the
coastal regions and cost of operations in a phased manner of sub-
working for the urban train services and on account of liability of concessional passes to various
welfare of fishing classes of passengers need to be curtailed," the CAG said in its latest report.
c o m m u n i t i e s ,
Prime Minister The CAG also called for improvement of productivity which has been deteriorat-
Narendra Modi said after unveiling a ing over the years and urged the national transporter to initiate effective mea-
sures to keep stringent check on miss-classifications in accounting.
string of infrastructure projects.
The growth in freight earnings and passenger earnings were 12.66 per cent and
He also announced plans to develop
a smart city around Kandla port in 15.49 per cent respectively against the CAGR of 14.32 per cent and 12.30 per
Gujarat, one of the 12 major ports in cent achieved during 2010-14.
India that will each get a smart city
around them. TransUnion introduces credit risk rank
To support banks other and financial institutions to evaluate their credit deci-
PF body to enroll con- sions better, credit information company
struction workers for en- TransUnion CIBIL has introduced a credit risk
rank for these firms. These financial institutions
rolment campaign includes companies who have lent about Rs 12

The Regional Provident Fund Com- lakh crore to micro, small and medium enter-
missioner of Kolkata prises (MSMEs).
is mulling to enrol Called the CIBIL MSME rank (CMR), algorithms based on the credit history data
construction indus- are used to forecast the chances of an MSME loan going bad in the next 12
try workers to meet months. Information for this is sourced from the data that banks feed a credit
its internal target information company. Based on this, MSMEs are ranked on a scale of 1-10, with
of one lakh enrol- CMR 1 being the least risky customer (MSME).
ment under its enrolment campaign.
Satish Pillai, MD and CEO of TransUnion CIBIL, said, "The sector is facing an
"So far the PF Commissioners office ongoing challenge of rising NPAs (non-performing assets). We believe resolving
has been able to enrol 50,000 new information asymmetry will be a contributor to making objective credit decisions
workers against the national target while ensuring wider and faster access to funds for MSMEs."
of 31,000 for Kolkata region", re-
gional PF Commissioner (I) Rajib 25% of dabbawalas will be organised
Bhattacharya said. He said talks were About 25 per cent of dabba traders, who provide illegal, off-market trading fa-
on with leading construction agen- cilities, have shifted to organised exchanges, fearing action such as
cies of the state to come up with
demonetisation and raids by the Securities and Ex-
names of workers for enrolment un- change Board of India. As a result, discount brokers
der the campaign. have turned out to be beneficiaries of this shift ow-
"The jute industry has cooperated by ing to their low transaction costs compared to full-
providing names of workers to the PF service brokers.
office for enrolment," he said. Trade sources estimate there are 25-30 dabba op-
Bhattacharya said the PF office would
erators each in all major centres such as Mumbai, Surat, Ahmedabad, Vadodara,
not cross-check or verify the numbers Nashik and Indore. Their business came to a standstill because of the liquidity
given and take them as final. crisis following demonetisation in November.

14 | 2017 | APRIL | BANKING FINANCE

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