CA Online

India cautions against linking safeguard provisions to food security solutions Developing countries led by India and others want world trade rules to ensure that they will not be challenged legally if they breach a country’s agreed limits for trade-distorting domestic support India has cautioned against what it says are un-implementable transparency and safeguard provisions that are being sought to be linked by some countries to an agreement on a permanent solution for public stockholding programs for food security (PSH)—a core Indian demand —at an upcoming meeting of trade ministers in Buenos Aires. Developing countries led by India and others want world trade rules to ensure that they will not be challenged legally if they breach a country’s agreed limits for trade-distorting domestic support, such as minimum support prices for crops. The matter tops the agenda of trade ministers who are set to gather in Buenos Aires for the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) 11th ministerial mee

Govt, RBI drawing up list of new banking reforms The finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are drawing up a list of reform measures to accompany the recent Rs 2.11-lakh- crore bank recapitalisation plan.These are being prepared in consultation with banks and might be classified into short-, medium- and longterm measures. Officials are tight-lipped about what these reforms might entail as preparations are still on. However, there are indications that some of the measures announced in Indradhanush — a seven-point plan to revamp state-owned banks but not completed — might be taken up again.“If there are some areas which have already been identified and on which action has not been taken, these will be included in the new effort,” outgoing Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa told Business Standard “It has been made amply clear that injection of capital, by itself, is not enough. It has to be accompanied by several other measures, internal and external, to the banks. I thi

NPCI, NSDL in fray to develop e-wallet for exporters The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) are in the fray for operating the proposed ewallet system for exporters under the goods and services tax (GST) regime.The government is yet to decide on the agency that will develop the notional credit system to help exporters with working capital flow.GST Network (GSTN), the information technology backbone of GST, is also being considered for this. In the government´s push foracashless economy, NPCI developed the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app for making payments, available for customers of 55 banks across the country.NSDL, the country´s first and largest depository, handles most of securities held and settled in dematerialised form. It is also a GST Suvidha Provider, which facilitates filing of returns.The directorate general of foreign trade (DGFT) is working out the amount of credit an exporter will initially need.E-wall

GST has not helped garment exports  Traders Garment exporters have told Parliament´s standing committee on commerce that they are yet to see any benefit from the goods and services tax (GST), with no decrease in input costs.A delegation of the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) also said shipments might dip in the globally competitive market.Bangladesh and Vietnam, for instance, have cost advantages on account of preferential trade agreements with major export markets and buyers are moving to these destinations for sourcing. Asaresult, they have warned, they might be forced to shed jobs.GST´s compliance requirements, they´ve complained, has strained their time and cost resources.“The overall effect on apparel exporters, especially small and medium ones (MSMEs), is burdensome and stressful due to substantial increase of working capital and higher transaction cost. MSMEs have to recruit the services of chartered accountants to manage GST payments and refunds,” said Ashok Rajani,

Lenders prefer sectoral guidelines for choosing buyers in insolvency sales  Banks that are part of the consortium of lenders for companies referred to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) have come toaconsensus that there should be sectoral guidelines for selection of bidders among those who show an interest in acquiring any of the stressed assets put up for sale. Bankers, who held meetings on this issueafew days ago, looked at three alternative evaluation matrices —whether the evaluation criteria should be different from company to company; whether these should be common across all companies, irrespective of the industry; or the third option of their being pegged to a particular sector. So, for instance, the criteria for choosing bidders for all steel companies will be the same, but these will differ from the criteria for automobile component companies. BIDDER SELECTION Banks evaluating three models for selecting bidders 1.It should vary from company to company 2.T

SC to hear Bengal govt’s plea on Aadhaar on Oct 30 The Mamata Banerjee- led West Bengal government has challenged the Centre’s move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing the benefits of various social welfare schemes in the SC, which has listed it for hearing on Monday. The plea is listed for hearing before a bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan. Senior advocate and member of parliament Kalyan Banerjee said the petition would come up for hearing before the bench on October 30. He said the West Bengal government has challenged the provision which says that without Aadhaar, the benefits of social welfare schemes would not be extended. The Mint, New Delhi, 28 th October 2017 

J&K to refund GST to protect tax relief given to factories Jammu and Kashmir govt clears plan to reimburse entire state GST and 42% of central GST to manufacturers who enjoyed excise duty relief in the earlier indirect regime  The Jammu and Kashmir government has cleared a plan to reimburse the entire state goods and services tax (SGST) and 42% of central GST (CGST) to manufacturers who had enjoyed excise duty relief in the earlier indirect regime. Before the introduction of GST from 1 July, manufacturing units in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and North Eastern states enjoyed 10-year excise duty relief either by way of upfront exemption or by way of a refund as the Central government wanted to encourage industrialisation of these states. After GST’s roll-out, the excise duty was replaced by GST, which has two equal components of CGST and SGST. The central government on 16 August decided to reimburse 58% of the CGST, which it collects from these units as the r