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RBI CORNER
RBI dispatches Rs.1 notes to PSU banks RBI hires sleuths to
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had Interestingly the RBI has not sent too probe NPA
sent the much-awaited new Rs.1 notes many of the Rs.1 notes. Each bank has
to various public sector banks a couple received just 3,000 packets containing The Reserve Bank of India had re-
of days ago through ceived re-
its various regional of- Rs.3 lakh worth ports on fo-
fices. notes including rensic inves-
State Bank of India. tigations
which it
Although the currency "Most probably, the had or-
notes printed at gov- new note are likely
ernment mints had to be out of reach dered into the bad debt at two com-
reached the RBI in July, the central for the customers as they may not go panies.
bank had sent them to banks in Sep- beyond the bank staff themselves, who
tember in major centres, including want to keep them as collection pieces," The RBI has never in the past hired
Hyderabad. said a senior RBI official. private investigators or forensic ex-
perts to carry out such inspections -
Govt: RBI can act as GST payment aggregator in these cases, to look for any diver-
sion of funds or errors on part of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi ex- 1,380-crore contract from GSTN in banks. Banks have increasingly been
pressed the hope on a national roll-out September. laundering investigations where
of goods and services tax (GST) from they suspect fraud, but the RBI's
2016-17, the finance ministry While the threshold limits are yet to be decision to take it upon itself and
released three reports on officially decided, the Centre order an independent probe under-
the processes for the new in- is pressing for an exemption lines its proactive efforts to handle
direct tax regime. These sug- limit of Rs 25 lakh annual the problem of growing NPAs on
gested that the Reserve turnover. bank books.
Bank of India (RBI) can act as
the aggregator of payments, The portal will have back-end The investigations lasted for about
and businesses will have to integration with the respec- six months in the companies namely
mandatorily register with tive information technology Surya Vinayak Industries and Deccan
the goods and services tax network systems of the Centre and Chronicle Holdings, and the RBI is
(GSTN) portal to avail of benefits of the states. yet to initiate any action on the re-
new tax system. ports.
On the payments, another report
The reports, prepared by joint sub- pointed out that RBI should play the Surya Vinayak Industries, a com-
committees of the Union finance min- role of an aggregator to make it con- modities firm based out of New
istry and the empowered committee venient for taxpayers by getting larger Delhi, has an NPA of about Rs.2,500
of state finance ministers, relate to number of banks on board. The gov- crore on the books of many public
registration, refunds and processes. ernment will allow GST payment by sector banks. Media firm Deccan
suppliers via bank transfers, credit and Chronicle Holdings has debt of about
“A legal person without GST registra- debit cards, and over-the-counter. Rs.4,000 crore.
tion can neither collect GST from his
customers nor claim any input tax “RBI should play the role of an In the case of both companies, at
credit of GST paid by him,” said the aggregator through its e-Kuber system. least two banks on separate occa-
report on registration. Such role will ease participation of sions had conducted forensic audits.
larger number of banks in GST receipts However, the RBI conducted the
The GSTN portal — IT backbone for enhancing convenience for the tax forensic audits suspecting that some
the new indirect tax system — will be payers and provide single source of in- public sector banks themselves may
designed by Infosys by March 31, 2016. formation for credit of the receipts to not have followed proper proce-
The company will also maintain it for government accounts and thereby sim- dures while giving out loans.
the next five years. It won the Rs plifying accounting and reconciliation
tasks,” the report noted.
BANKING FINANCE | NOVEMBER | 2015 | 9
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