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Ministries and government departments with a direct interface with the public on Friday got down to planning strategies to go cashless after Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed them to switch to online payments and cheques. The directives were issued by Mo di last night in a Cabinet meeting held to review the demonetisation drive. The steps to go cashless will be reviewed in a follow-up meeting next week. On its part, the labour ministry, along with the finance ministry, has decided to hold special camps in over 640 districts from Saturday to facilitate opening of bank accounts. Ministries and government departments with a direct interface with the public got down on Friday to planning strategies to go cashless after Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed them to switch to online payments and cheques. The directives were issued by Modi on Thursday night in a special cabinet meeting to review the demonetisation drive. The steps to go cashless will be reviewed in a follow-up cabinet me

KYC norms to be modelled on SGX, LSE; exchanges may function 24/7, five days a week; trading of masala bonds to be allowed  The government is firming up regulations for the international stock exchanges to be set up in the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT). These exchanges may be operational for 24 hours facilitating market participants to carry out arbitrage between products of various exchanges across the world, according to recent discussions carried out between regulators, brokers and exchanges. The products to be traded will include currency, commodity and equity derivatives, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as well as international & domestic mutual funds. Products such as quanto futures and masala bonds may also be allowed. Currently not traded on Indian exchanges, quanto futures and options are cash settled derivatives in which the underlying traded product is denominated in a foreign currency that is settled in another domestic currency at a fixed exchange rate. S

Shortage of cash continues and in some places banks are enforcing their own limits on cash withdrawal The queues in banks have shortened considerably in the past few days and government’s decision to forbid exchange of certain notes on Thursday did not seem to have much adverse impact on the general public. However, shortage of cash continues and in some places banks are enforcing their own limits on cash withdrawal. For example, in pockets of Bengaluru, some branches have set a limit of Rs 10,000 withdrawal per week against the mandated Rs 24,000 as branches struggle to give cash to everyone in the queue.  "The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is not supplying enough cash. We are running out of cash, only a few thousands are left in the bank right now. Due to this, we're restricting the maximum withdrawal limits to Rs 10,000 per week, as opposed to Rs 24,000,” said a senior official at one of the branches of Canara Bank in Bengaluru.  According to the official, there was no cash

Amendments will be tabled in Parliament for approval by Monday or Tuesday  Those who deposited their black money in banks, disclosing it to be untaxed wealth, since the government announced demonetisation will now have to pay income tax at 50% and a quarter of the portion of the unaccounted income would remain with the government for four years, as per amendments planned to the Income Tax Act by the Centre. The amendments will be tabled in Parliament for approval by Monday or Tuesday, a top government official said on Friday. According to the amendments planned, those who deposit their unaccounted income in banks till the last date would have to pay a 50% tax and will have to forgo 25% of the deposited amount for four years. Those who do not disclose their black money and are caught by income tax (I-T) officer would have to pay 60% tax and 30% penalty, the official said. The government announced demonetisation of the old series Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes on November 8. Those w

New Delhi Centre on Thursday asserted in the Supreme Court that the "bold move" of demonetisation would eradicate black money and slush funds operating since Independence, which created a "parallel economy" hitting the poor and middle classes. The Centre, which filed an affidavit on note ban, said the decision on which total secrecy was maintained, would now help in proper implementation of the ambitious Jan Dhan Yojana under which around 220 million bank accounts for poor people have been opened. 25TH NOVEMBER, 2016, THE BUSINESS STANDARD, NEW DELHI

The highest NPAs, of over 15 per cent, are in leather, textile and steel industries Banks concentrating on a few states has led to rising loan defaults (giving up of loan repayment) and non-payments in micro as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs), a report by TransUnion Cibil said on Thursday. "Focusing on a few states deprive the lenders of an opportunity to exhibit calibrated loan growth. Currently, some banks tend to have analytical and strategic focus on five or at most 10 states and may not be fully sensitive to industry credit profile divergences," TransUnion Cibil India managing director and chief executive Satish Pillai said. He cited Rajasthan, which has the lowest non-performing assets (NPAs or bad loans) for commercial loans at two per cent, but also the lowest concentration of loans. According to the report, the NPA rate in micro enterprises has been range-bound between 6 and 6.5 per cent, but the SME segment shows a worrying trend in terms of loan qualit

Govt extends exemptions till December 15; bans Rs 1,000 notes, exchange of old currency The Union Cabinet late on Thursday cleared a proposal to amend the Income Tax (I-T) Act to levy close to 60% deduction on unaccounted deposits in banks above a threshold, said sources. The decision was purportedly prompted by a surge in deposits — about ~20,000 crore, according to some reports — in Jan Dhan accounts since November 8, when the central government announced the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. The amount deposited in this period is almost 50% of the total deposits in these accounts in the two years since their launch. The move is also aimed at preventing black money holders from circumventing existing I-T Act provisions. Also, earlier in the day, the government, facing severe attacks over difficulties in implementing demonetisation, extended till December 15 the facility of using old Rs 500 notes in public utilities and included more services such as mobile rechar