RBI's financial Outreach Camp to be held

Imphal, March 17 2012: Reserve bank of India (RBI) as part of its Platinum jubilee celebrations, had organized financial outreach Camps in various villages of the North Eastern States in the year 2009 and 2010 . Encouraged by the response received and the success of the Financial Outreach Camps, Reserve Bank of India has now launched the third phase of such camps in the North East and is organizing another camp at Kimin Village in Arunachal Pradesh on March 26, 2012, according to a source from RBI. The purpose of such camps is to bring awareness regarding banking facilities and make an attempt at making available such facilities to every adult citizen in the target area and for bringing them under the fold of mainstream banking. It is very important for every adult citizen to have a bank account since a scheduled bank is not only a safe place to deposit his/her hard earned money, but also a channel which links the account holder with the broader network of payment and settlement platform enabling easy remittance and payments anywhere in India. Moreover, all can get loans from the banking system at reasonable rates of interest under various schemes for all the requirements such as education, personal needs and for business. Many of the schemes are primarily targeting Below Poverty Line citizens and underdeveloped areas of the country, the source maintained. The Camp at Kimin Village on March 26, 2012 would be inaugurated by H R Khan, Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India. Chief Secretary of Government of Arunachal Pradesh, Regional Director, Reserve Bank of India, Banking Ombudsman for North East, Chief General Manager, State Bank of India, NE Circle, Chief General Manager, NABARD, District Magistrates and Papumpare District will also be attending the camp. To dissipate information on various facilities/schemes, stalls would be set up at the camp by RBI, Office of Banking Ombudsman, NABARD, various banks like SBI, UBI, UCo Bank, Arunachal Pradesh Rural Bank, Arunachal Pradesh State Co-operative Bank, NEDFi, SIDBI, KVIC, KVIB, NSIC, Agriculture/Veterinary Department, the source disclosed.

http://www.e-pao.net/GP.asp?src=3..180312.mar12

RBI to be spared from wealth tax

Imagine the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) being asked to pay wealth tax. Sounds bizarre? The government has just realised that the central bank need not pay wealth tax and to stem any embarrassment it is planning to amend the Wealth Tax Act to ensure that the tax is not levied on the RBI which is the banker to the government and custodian of the country's gold reserves….....

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Hiking indirect taxes a smart move, says RBI deputy governor Subir Gokarn

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's Budget proposal to raise excess revenue from indirect taxes rather than touching the direct taxes is a smart move, as it does not require a Parliamentary approval, Reserve Bank has said. RBI Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn said this method improves the reliability of garnering the necessary revenue as change in indirect taxation is an executive decision, and does not have to be approved by Parliament................

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HC notice to RBI over firms’ gold loans

A division bench of the High Court of Karnataka headed by Chief Justice Vikramajit Sen has issued notices to the Governor of RBI, chief secretary of Karnataka and the Registrar of Societies for failing to regulate non-banking financial institutions Mannapuram Finance and Muthoot Fincorp, both of which deal with gold loans…….

Read - Mirror (Bangalore Edition)

Plea to set up debt management office for banks

.......It was very important that the relationship between the Union and the State governments and that of both with the RBI be taken into account before giving shape to the structure of DMO. He said the proposed debt management office should be an independent, autonomous body with equal participation of the Union and the State governments and the RBI, with independent views, goals and objectives...............

Read - The Hindu

Maharashtra govt injects Rs 50 cr into MSCB to achieve 4% CRAR

……. "The government has recently conveyed to Nabard that it was prepared to allocate Rs 5 crore or more to MSCB to achieve the CRAR of 4% from 3.95%, as shown by Nabard. Accordingly, a provision has been made and included in the supplementary demands tabled in the state legislature on Thursday. The ball is in now in the court of Nabard and ultimately of RBI to grant banking licence to MSCB."…….

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An example worth appreciating/emulating

Dear All

The following report appeared in the Hindu on March 15, 2012.

Regards

M G Warrier, Thiruvananthapuram

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A gesture of appreciation to society

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: When H. Ganesan retired from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as Manager after 37 years of service, he wanted the occasion to be more than just a meeting. “I wanted to make an occasion to express my gratitude to my friends, family, and dear ones for the good things that have happened in my life. I also wanted to give back something to society because I have come up in life the hard way and have benefited from the many acts of benevolence of society,” Mr. Ganesan says. He chose to do a few things which he thought would never go waste. The Government Hospital at Fort, which has been rendering medical care to all in the locality since ages and used to be a big source of solace to Mr. Ganesan and his family, was to be the first beneficiary. “We had great faith in this hospital, its doctors, and the red-and green-coloured medicines which used to be dispensed from the huge glass bottles to everyone. I believe that government hospitals, as institutions rendering public health service, should be strengthened and patronized by more of us,” he says.

Hospital equipment

On March 1, at a function in Thiruvananthapuram, Mr. Ganesan handed over equipment to the tune of more than Rs.1 lakh to the health authorities as a token of appreciation for the service rendered to the poor. The equipment included wheelchairs, a walker, glucometers, blood pressure apparatus, nebulisers, water purifier, ceiling fans, mattresses, bed-sheets, waste buckets and the like. Mr. Ganesan says he visited the hospital several times to assess its requirements and ensure that he only bought items that would not be supplied by the government. As a token of gratitude to the staff at the RBI canteen who, he says, fed him good food all through his years in office, he handed over 14 savings bank (SB) and recurring deposit (RD) account pass books to the canteen employees in whose names he had opened bank accounts. The accounts were zero balance operable accounts with an initial deposit of Rs.900 in SB account and Rs.100 in RD account and included an insurance cover for Rs.5 lakh. He also distributed blankets and bed-sheets to 25 elderly, indigent persons. Hailing from a poor Brahmin family in the Fort area, Mr. Ganesan remembers the years of penury when he and his six siblings depended on the ‘padachoru’ and ‘prasadams’ from Sree Padmananbhaswamy temple for subsistence. He could not go for higher studies, but after he joined the RBI as a typist, he acquired MA, MBA, and M. Phil. Degrees through self-study and correspondence courses. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in Healthcare Administration at Madurai Kamraj University. “All this was possible because of the grace of God which showed itself in so many acts of kindness of many people. It was my duty to do whatever I could to thank God,” he says. 

Budget 2012: Infra bonds may no longer be tax-deductible

……….. Investors should not confuse the increase in the permission given to institutions to raise additional amounts of tax free bonds with this particular benefit. Those are tax free bonds where the interest earned is not taxed while these are bonds that allow for deduction based upon the amount of investment in the bonds and the interest income earned here is taxable.

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Budget 2012 - Merely a management game : Subir Roy

…….What is, however, most likely to happen is that the deceleration in the inflation rate witnessed in the last few months is likely to be halted, at least temporarily, courtesy the across-the-board rise in indirect taxes. Seeing this, the Reserve Bank of India is likely to go easy on any action to lower interest rates, in line with its inaction in the latest review of monetary policy. If we note that the deceleration in the growth rate over several quarters to as low as 6.1 per cent in the third quarter of the current year was critically due to the central bank’s anti-inflation policy of dear money — and that a cheap money regime may not arrive in a hurry — then how will the growth rate go up to 7.6 per cent next year from this year’s 6.9 per cent? And, without higher growth, what happens to revenue buoyancy and correction of the fiscal balance?.........

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Budget 2012: Do we need a 1990s crisis to shock us into reforms?

…..There is some hope that the RBI will cut rates in April. But with such a deficit, high global liquidity and so much left to be done to correct administered prices, it is tough to expect the RBI to oblige. Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn may have sounded appreciative of the government’s tax increases to bridge the deficit, but if month-on-month core inflation rises, as it well may, the RBI may find itself postponing the much awaited rate cut........

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Possibility of fiscal slippage is low: RBI

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) believes that the scope for fiscal slippage in 2012-13 is low because the government’s plan to reduce the fiscal deficit is based on revenues coming in from higher taxes and had addressed the supply bottlenecks that had been worrying the RBI..................

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No service tax on Metro, taxi, 2nd class rail travel

……….As regards sale and purchase of foreign currency, it has been clarified that such activity among the banks and dealers will be kept out of the Service Tax net. However, by implication, the sale of foreign currency by dealers to individuals will attract the levy. It was also pointed out that the services provided by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and foreign diplomatic mission will be kept out of the purview of the tax net……..

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How to ensure safety of ur bank locker & bank locker charges

......According to the Reserve Bank of India, the relationship between the Bank and the Locker hirer is that of the ‘Bailor and the Bailee’ and not that of the “Landlord and the Tenant”. ...........

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A ferocious great of Santiniketan

......The Yaksha-Yakshi series sculpted as the mythical guardians for the Reserve Bank of India building also grab one's attention at the exhibition as does his equally well-known sculpture of Gandhi.......

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