Page 10 - Banking Finance April 2016
P. 10
ROUNDUP
INDUSTRY
EY to scout advertising EPFO will not slash interest rates: Labour Ministry
potential of Indian Rail-
ways EPFO will not revise its interim interest rate of 8.8 per cent downward for the
current financial year, Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya
Indian Railways has said it has ap- said. "We will not revise it (interim interest rate) down-
pointed EY as a consultant to discover wards. The revision will be keeping in view the economic
the advertising potential in trains and trend in the country, interest rates of various schemes as
railway stations. EY will identify assets well as the 7th Pay Commission," Dattatreya told.
and formulate a pricing strategy for
advertising across 7,000 railways sta- When asked about the interim announcement, he said the prevailing situations
tions in the country. need to be analysed and after that the CBT will again meet in the future to
decide the interest rate. The Minister said trade unions had demanded an in-
EY will help railways identify assets terest rate of 9 per cent, but paying at that rate would have left the retire-
across stations for advertising and ment fund body with a deficit of Rs.102 crore.
will develop a pricing strategy, Indian
Railways said in a press release. The Separate vertical to adopt more customer friendly approach
firm has commenced its exercise.
This is the first time in the country The income tax department has created a separate vertical specially focusing
that a large-scale project to identify on taxpayer services in line with the recommendation of the Tax Administration
and leverage pan-India advertising Reforms Commission to adopt a more customer-focused approach.
opportunities has been initiated.
The new vertical is in addition to functions such as revenue, investigation, leg-
Farokh Balsara, partner and national islation and computerization, income tax, personnel and vigilance and audit and
leader, media and entertainment, EY judicial services that are overseen by members of the Central Board of Direct
India, said, "There has never been a Taxes. These directorates will be responsible for delivery and monitoring of tax-
nation-wide assessment of advertis- payers services in field offices and e-services delivered through electronic plat-
ing potential of assets at such a forms of the department.
large scale. We are excited and
proud to be associated with Indian Centre is mulling to relax norms for acceptance of deposits
Railways on a project that will gen-
erate advertising revenues and in In a bid to improve corporate liquidity, the Centre is weighing the possibility of
turn help to expand and improve relaxing norms governing acceptance of deposits by com-
services for commuters. This aligns panies from the public under the Companies Act, 2013.
with EY's purpose of building a bet- The Companies Law Committee has recommended that
ter working world." the amount of funds to be deposited and kept in a sched-
uled bank by a company in a financial year should be
changed to not less than 20 per cent of the amount of deposits maturing during
that financial year.
10 | 2016 | APRIL | BANKING FINANCE
