Page 14 - Banking Finance April 2016

ROUNDUP

Major income from livestock: NSSO Service charge, user
charge paid by gateways
Less than 2% of rural households earn a major por- to be waived off
tion of their income from self-employment in livestock
farming, says a government survey. Service charge, user charge and con-
venience fee paid by gateways and
"Around 1.75% of the total rural households derived vendors on online or card payments
the major income from self-employment in livestock will be waived once steps approved
farming, which comprises around 2.7 million rural households, owning around by the Cabinet come into effect.
0.489 hectare of land per household," a survey by the National Sample Survey Also, above a threshold, one has to
Organization (NSSO) said. Conducted in January-December 2013, the survey said make payment online or through
among all the land used for animal farming, the major use was made for dairy cards. The move would discourage
at 53.8% during July-December 2012 and 69.7% during January-June 2013. cash payment and help tax authori-
ties get leads on evasion. The Cabi-
Govt allots Rs. 70,000 cr for implementation of 7th Pay net approved various steps in this re-
Commission gard to be taken in a year to two
years to boost these payments.
As much as Rs.70,000 crore has been provisioned in the Union Budget 2016-17
for implementation of the seventh Pay Commission for Service charge is currently levied by
government employees, a top finance ministry official payment gateways and paid to the
said. While the budget did not provide an explicit over- government. The vendor using a pay-
all provision number, the government had said the 7th ment gateway also pays a conve-
Pay Commission hike has been built in as interim alloca- nience charge. On credit cards, it is
1-2.5 per cent.
tion for different ministries and budget numbers were credible. Implementa-
tion of the Pay Commission report will cost the government Rs.1.02 trillion in The move will help the government in
total. carrying out its financial inclusion
programmes digitally. "It will help re-
Postal dept surpasses SBI in digital connectivity duce transaction cost and encourage
electronic mode of payment, facilitat-
The postal department has surpassed State Bank of India in terms of digital ing the financial inclusion agenda of
connectivity even before the launch of its payments bank, Union IT and Com- the government," said Kalpesh
munications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said. "The core banking solution (CBS) Mehta, partner, Deloitte Haskins &
or digital connectivity of the postal department has surpassed the State Bank Sells. The largest e-commerce site,
of India's digital connectivity," Prasad said. Indian Railway Catering and Tourism
Corporation, earned Rs 1,100 crore in
The postal department has received in-principle nod to start a payments bank, 2014-15, of which Rs 350 crore was
along with 10 other players, including corporate houses like the Mahindras, from e-ticketing. A daily 550,000 tick-
Birlas, Reliance Industries and telecom firms. Successful applicants have been ets were booked on the site.
given 18 months to start operations. They are required to present a final plan
of operation to the Reserve Bank of India before the final nod. Tax refund claims of over
Rs. 1.5 lakh cr pending
Railways to physically verify retired employees be- for a span of years
tween 80-100 years
Tax refund claims worth over Rs. 1.5
The Railways have launched a first-of-its-kind exercise to physically verify lakh crore for various assessment
whether all its retired employees, aged between 80 and 100 years, are still alive. years were pending with the income-
tax department, minister of state for
Hundreds of "Welfare Inspectors" have been fanning out to track down each of finance Jayant Sinha said.
the 2.86 lakh former employees in this age group, who form 20 per cent of the
Railways' total pensioner population of 13,75,483 and draw a combined pen-
sion of at least Rs 8,000 crore.

The inspectors, all railway employees, have been asked to visit the houses of all
pensioners in this age bracket.

14 | 2016 | APRIL | BANKING FINANCE