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Fiscal deficit target of 3.2% realistic,he says Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said an institution to tackle non-performing assets (NPAs) of banks and over-leveraged companies could not be funded by the government alone through budgetary support.He,however,did not dismiss the idea of the body mooted by the Economic Survey. Interacting with representatives of industry chambers,two days after he tabled the Budget in the Lok Sabha, Jaitley said he would not like to get into a situation where eventually NPAs become a government issue and the whole thing has to be supported out of the Budget. The Economic Survey for 2016-17 stated the country has been trying to solve its‘Twin Balance Sheet’problem — overleveraged companies and bad-loan encumbered banks,alegacy of the boom  period around the Global Financial Crisis.So far,there had been limited success,it said. It suggested a centralised Public Sector Asset Rehabilitation Agency (PARA),which could take charge ofthe largest, mos...

Airtel payments bank charge a fee of 0.65% on all cash withdrawals above Rs 4,000 from the account The Narendra Modi government is considering a cap on service charges levied on online transactions, as it looks to encourage further digital means of payments  for goods and services. According to a senior government source, rules are to be amended to put a limit on service charge as volume of transactions increase. "The government has received feedback from consumers and stakeholders on how high rates of service charges are disincentivising them to shift to a less cash economy." said the person, and added that there would be notification on the matter soon.   Some of the mobile wallets charge around one per cent service charge for KYC (know your customer) and around four percent service charge for non-KYC account holders for using their services, said shopkeepers using mobile wallets.   Airtel payments bank charge a fee of 0.65 per cent on all cash withdrawals above Rs 4,0...

POLITICAL FUNDING Move to ensure that the proposed instrument is not misused as a parallel currency Precautions will be built in to ensure the anonymity of the donors' contribution The government is plan ning to impose a time limit for redeem ing the electoral bonds announced in the Budget to ensure that the proposed instrument of political funding is not misused as a parallel currency . A senior government official in volved in framing of the new mechanism told ET on condition of ano nymity that the bonds will have to be redeemed within a specified number of days to ensure the bonds are credited into the designated banks ac counts of political parties at the earliest. “There will be a fixed time window for redeeming the electoral bonds. In fact, this time window will be in terms of days, not months or years,“ the official said. This will ensure that the proposed electoral bonds do not become a par allel currency for exchange between multiple entities, a prospect that could def...

Revenue secretary says GST on schedule for implementation later this year Revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia said the goods and services tax is on schedule for implementation later this year and that there would be no harassment of genuine taxpayers over deposits of old notes in the wake of demonetisation. The government has been able to mine data following the currency swap announcement on November 8 and match deposits to inco me profiles. But enough safeguards have been built into the system to prevent persecution. “First of all, we have never gone beyond our mandate of taking up more than 1% of cases for scrutiny,“ Adhia said. “The question is that because of demonetisation there is a large amount of data which we have got and that data people are fea ring will be mi sused for haras sing people.“ The 18 lakh acco unt holders that have come to attention as a result of this data mining will be given a chance to explain their sources of income. “We have not allowed this data to be sent d...