Attention of Authorised Dealer Category – I (AD Category – I) banks is invited to Notification No.FEMA 29/2000-RB dated September 26, 2000 viz. Payment to person resident outside India on invocation of guarantee, A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No. 28 dated March 30, 2001 and A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No. 5 dated August 1, 2005 relating to External Commercial Borrowings (ECB).
As per the extant ECB policy, infrastructure sector is defined as (i) power, (ii) telecommunication, (iii) railways, (iv) road including bridges, (v) sea port and airport, (vi) industrial parks, (vii) urban infrastructure (water supply, sanitation and sewage projects) and (viii) mining, exploration and refining.
As announced in para 54 of the Union Budget for the Year 2010-11, it has been decided to expand the definition of infrastructure sector, for the purpose of availing of ECB, to include “cold storage or cold room facility, including for farm level pre-cooling, for preservation or storage of agricultural and allied produce, marine products and meat”. Accordingly, the infrastructure sector would henceforth be defined to include (i) power, (ii) telecommunication, (iii) railways, (iv) road including bridges, (v) sea port and airport, (vi) industrial parks, (vii) urban infrastructure (water supply, sanitation and sewage projects), (viii) mining, exploration and refining and (ix) cold storage or
As you are aware, for convenient, cost-effective and quick processing and settlement of clearing instruments arising out of normal business activities of banks, an elaborate Clearing House infrastructure is in place in the country. Currently operational at most locations across the length and breadth of the country, Clearing Houses facilitate multilateral net clearing and settlement of over four million cheques everyday on a T + 1 basis. In fact, the processing cycle in India for local cheques encompasses both the presentation and return clearing legs, and compares favourably with similar systems around the world.
The Committee recommended that the Lead Bank Scheme is useful and needs to continue. The overarching objective of the Scheme is to enable banks and State Governments to work together for inclusive growth. All the action points emanating from the recommendations of the Committee requiring action to be taken by the Lead Banks/commercial banks are appended at Annex. You are advised to initiate actions for speedy implementation of the recommendations and also closely monitor the progress made by commercial banks in this regard.
Circular No. 3/2010-Income Tax CBDT clarifies that Explanation to 194A is not meant to apply in cases of banks where credit is made to provisioning account on daily/monthly basis for the purposes of macro monitoring only by the use of CBS software
