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Economy Current Affairs October 1st Week 2016
Category : Economy Current Affairs
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1) Over Rs 65,000 cr declared in Income Disclosure Scheme so far: FM

  • Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on October 1st said 65 thousand 250 crore rupees have been declared in the Income Disclosure Scheme, IDS, so far.  
  • Some disclosures have not been tabulated yet and the figure could increase after the final tabulation. He said 64 thousand 275 declarations were made under the IDS. Mr Jaitley said the disclosures are significant, given the average disclosure is of one crore rupees.  
  • Mr Jaitley said, the tax collected from the the Income Declaration Scheme will go into the Consolidated Fund of India and will be used for the welfare of the people.  
  • The Minister also informed that 56,378 crore rupees worth of undetected income was uncovered through search operations which resulted in an actual seizure of 1986 crore rupees in the last two-and -half years.  
  • With regard to the cases of black money allegedly stashed overseas in HSBC bank accounts, Mr Jaitley said, assessment of sum of 8000 crore rupees has been completed and 164 prosecutions have been filed. He said government has taken various steps to increase tax compliance and check tax avoidance. 
  • The scheme was announced by the government in June this year with an aim to bring out black money from the domestic economy. Those disclosing assets under the IDS will have to pay 45 per cent tax with penalty.  
  • The payments can be made in three installments till September 2017. The first installment of 25 per cent under the scheme will have to be paid by November this year followed by another installment of 25 per cent by 31st March next year. The remaining amount will have to be paid by September, 2017. 

 

2) Centre to add 50 more farm commodities to e-NAM

  • Current Affairs As the electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) is about to complete six months, the Centre has decided to add 50 more farm commodities to the already existing 25, which could be traded through this portal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched e-NAM on April 14 this year.  
  • In its six-month journey, the number of mandis, which have joined the portal, has also reached over 236, as against just 21 when the project was launched.  
  • Of this, around 63 mandis have joined the e-NAM portal in Uttar Pradesh, followed by 41 in Telangana, 40 in Gujarat and 20 in Madhya Pradesh among others.  
  • The Centre claims till date around 90,073 metric tonnes of farm goods worth Rs 290 crore have been transacted through e-NAM. Almost 38,425 traders have registered themselves on e-NAM and over a lakh farmers have also joined the national market. More than 20,000 commission agents have also availed the services of e-NAM, the Centre claims.  
  • The Centre plans to add over 500 mandis in e-NAM, by the end of 2018, of which 200 were to be joined by the end of September. The e-NAM is one of the many initiatives through which the Centre plans to double farmers income by 2018.  
  • India has 2,477 principal mandis and 4,843 sub-markets created by the APMCs (Agricultural Produce Market Committees). With a corpus of Rs 200 crore to be spent over three years, the plan is to link nearly 585 major mandis in the first phase.  
  • According to the guidelines, those mandis, which want to participate in the electronic platform and avail the Centre’s grant of over Rs 30 lakh, need to fulfill three criteria, which are: put in place e-auction platform for price discovery of agricultural produce, provide a single licence that is valid across the state and a single point levy of market fee. 
  • A major objective of the common market is to iron out the price differentials that exist across the country by curbing the tendency to hoard, which in the final analysis could lead to a moderation of food inflation. The integration, as many experts and people working in the field believe, will usher in a new era in agriculture marketing in the country and could be a permanent solution against the dreaded APMC Act, the legislation through which state governments exercise their control over the wholesale markets. 
  • The APMCs were first established to provide an organised marketplace to farmers and to ensure that they are not exploited at the hands of unscrupulous buyers. Ironically, in the last 15-20 years, the APMCs have played a role, which is just opposite to their stated objective.  
  • Moreover, as the levies collected by APMCs do not go to the state exchequer and also any spending does not require legislature approval, their operations are more often than not hidden from scrutiny.