The Finance Ministry is working on savings banks account number portability, which will allow a customer to retain his account number while changing his bank.
Very rarely moments come into the life of a professional body, where a call is taken on the way forward, so as to realise its true potential. Such a moment came in December 2011, when emotions ran high amongst us, as to what will finally emerge through the churning process that happened in the Parliament-the highest legislature of the country, which passed the Cost and Works Accountants (Amendment) Bill 2011. As all of you are aware, the Rajya Sabha passed the bill on 12th December 2011 with some amendments. The LokSabha passed it without further amendments to the bill that was passed in RajyaSabha. While this entire episode had our profession in the centre of the arena fighting a battle, but the happenings on the sidelines by unaffected parties, turned the tables against our just demand for decades. The details of the bill passed by RajyaSabha is available at http://164.100.24.219/BillsTexts/RSBillTexts/PassedRajyaSabha/cost%20work.pdf
The following additional methods viz. Institutional Placement Programme (IPP) and Offer for Sale of Shares through the stock exchange for the purpose of compliance with SCRR requirements are being introduced. The broad features of the same are as under:
As part of efforts to fight black money, the government has decided to double the strength of the crucial foreign tax division in Finance Ministry which handles classified tax related information between India, tax haven nations and other countries.
The Union Budget will be presented after the completion of elections in five states, but the government has not yet decided the final date of presentation, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said today.
Concerned over the declining growth, Reserve Bank Governor D Subbarao has indicated that the central bank could reverse the tight monetary stance adopted by it since March 2010 to tame inflation.
Toll-free Helpline Service for Investors Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has launched a toll free helpline service number 1800 22 7575 for investors on December 30, 2011. The service will be available to investors from all over India and will be in 14 languages. At present the available languages are English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam, Telugu, Urdu, Oriya and Punjabi. The service in Kannada, Assamese and Kashmiri will be commenced shortly. The toll free helpline service will be available on all working days during Monday to Friday from 9:30 a.m to 5:30 p.m.
Ministry of Corporate Affairs has accorded approval to the proposal of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI) to give membership to and charging of fees from the members of the Institute of Public Accountants (IPA), Australia and the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), USA in terms of the MOUs entered into by the ICWAI With these Institutes.
A committee set up by market regulator Sebi to examine IPO-related issues is looking into a proposal to allow companies to sell shares through electronic Initial Public Offers (e-IPOs). The proposed move would enable companies to sell shares electronically. Under such a system, investors would bid for shares online and would not be required to sign any papers physically.
India’s exports during November, 2011 were valued at US$ 22321.64 million (Rs.113519.82 crore) which was 3.87 per cent higher in Dollar terms (17.34 per cent higher in Rupee terms) than the level of US$ 21489.49 million (Rs. 96742.01) during November, 2010. Cumulative value of exports for the period April-November 2011 -12 was US$ 192694.38 million (Rs 893094.16 crore) as against US$ 144659.95 million (Rs.661055.88 crore) registering a growth of 33.21 per cent in Dollar terms and 35.10 per cent in Rupee terms over the same period last year.
