Higher Allowances for central staff likely from 1st April

7th Pay Commission: Govt not to hike minimum pay, higher allowances to be paid from April 1.

No Arrears likely.

 In a setback to central government employees, Centre has decided not to hike minimum pay under the 7th Pay Commission recommendations. Higher allowances and minimum pay under the 7th Pay Commission have been the major bone of contention among majority of the central government employees. The government seems in no mood to increase minimum pay of Rs 18,000 under the 7th Pay Commission. Though the government is expected to announce higher allowances in March, it had no plan to give allowances in arrears from August.

Removal of limits on withdrawal of cash from Saving Bank Accounts - RBI Order

Head post offices to render passport services

TNN | Updated: Feb 2, 2017 : To increase citizens' access to passport services, particularly in remote regions, finance minister Arun Jaitley announced that head post offices of each district would be used to render passport services. 

 "Our citizens in far flung regions of the country find it difficult to obtain passports and redress passport related grievances. We have decided to utilise head post offices as front offices for rendering passport services," he said.

Income Tax Chart for 2017-18

Posting of PPF/SSA Intersol deposits by PM at HO

From: Gopinath S <gopinath.s@indiapost.gov.in>

Date: 3 February 2017 at 09:34

Subject: POSTING OF PPF/SSA Intersol deposits by PM at HO

Sir/Madam,

            I am directed by competent authority to convey the following.

 Implementation of 25,000 intersol limit

 Cheques accepted for subsequent deposits in Sub Office PPF / SSA accounts are lodged at HO in 0017 account of HO and posting is carried out at HOs after clearance, to facilitate posting, as per SB order 5  of 2016 intersol limit has been configured as 1.5 lakhs on 07/01/2017 as a temporary solution. Now Patch is deployed for implementing intersol limits from today.

Non-filers of income tax returns will now face a steep fine.

NEW DELHI: Non-filers of income tax returns will now face a steep fine.

For people earning below Rs 5 lakh, filing returns after July will attract a fine of Rs 1,000 and those with earnings above Rs 5 lakh would face a fine of Rs 5,000. “Those who have an income over Rs 5 lakh and file returns after July but till December will face a fine of Rs 5,000. This fine will be raised to Rs 10,000 if the return is filed after December,” revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia said at a post-budget event organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. 

At present, there is no fine if the returns are filed with a delay within the assessment year, but a penalty of Rs 5000 could be imposed if the filing was after it. But the income tax department did not aggressively pursue this. Adhia said that there are 50 lakh companies registered in the country of which just 6.9 lakh filed income tax returns. He asked members of the institute to encourage their clients to file returns. 

Govt to look into issues of Aadhaar being made mandatory for select schemes

New Delhi, January 26:  

The Centre is examining various questions raised by Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC), a legal services organisation, with regard to violation of the Supreme Court’s order against making Aadhaar mandatory for access to certain services, sources close to the development, told BusinessLine.

According to sources, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, has recently responded to a letter by Rajya Sabha MP, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, saying he was ‘getting the matter examined’.

Chandrasekhar, in his letter to Prasad in December, had asked the government to state the ‘correct position under law’ on the issue of Aadhaar being made mandatory by various government and private entities with regard to their schemes, which, he said was a violation of the apex court’s orders.

Chandrasekhar had also raised question in the Rajya Sabha in November, after which SFLC had written in detail to Chandrashekar, listing out about 120 violations between September 2015 and September 2016, based on which the MP had written a letter to Prasad, who incidentally is also the Law & Justice Minister.

REFLECTION OF THE RECURRENT LAPSES IN OBSERVING FINANCIAL DISCIPLINE IN THE ANNUAL PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT REPORT (APAR)

FEATURES OF RURAL ICT HANDHELD DEVICE SUPPLIED TO BRANCH POST OFFICES

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IndiaPost becomes 3rd entity to receive licence to start payment bank operations

NEW DELHI: IndiaPost has become the third entity to receive a final license last week from the Central Bank to start its payment bank operations. Country’s largest telcom service provider Bharti Airtel and digital payments firm Paytm are the other two to have received the license while only Airtel has started operations so far. 

The government has also appointed AP Singh has interim MD and CEO of the India Post Payment Bank. A 1986 Indian Postal Service Officer he was earlier Joint Secretary in the department of disinvestment, ministry of Finance and Deputy Director General incharge of financial inclusion and payments systems at Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Singh was one part of the founding team that launched Aadhaar and was stationed at the department of Post prior to UIDAI.