No corporates will be allowed to buy bank equity

NEW DELHI, MAR 1: No corporates will be allowed to purchase the equity of banks which disinvest government equity, in order to raise funds...

NEW DELHI, MAR 1: No corporates will be allowed to purchase the equity of banks which disinvest government equity, in order to raise funds for recapitalising themselves. And, no, the government does not have any plans to privatise the banks. As for the time-frame of the move to bring down government equity to 33 per cent and the money to be raised from this, it all depends on how much individual banks need to raise, and in what period. This was stated an the annual post-budget briefing by senior finance ministry officials today.

Economic affairs secretary E A S Sarma and expenditure secretary C M Vasudev said excise duty rationalisation to single rate of 16 per cent cenvat was not inflationary. They said that close to 86 per cent of the total revenue which would accrue would come from the 16 per cent single rate — in other words, media reports that prices of automobiles and white goods would go up because of the excise changes, were incorrect.

Mankad said most of the raw materials and otherintermediaries would not attract special additional excise duty of 8,16 and 24 per cent that would be charged in addition to 16 per cent cenvat. He said the highest rate of 24 per cent specialadditional excise duty was applicable to a few items of conspicuous consumption like cars, pan masala, aerated water and some tobacco products.

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Referring to cut in food and fertiliser subsidies, mankadsaid the government would save about Rs. 6,000 crore. But care had been taken that there was no loss for people living below the poverty line under the public distribution system.

Now the pds has been made more focussed with additionalallocation of 10 kg of wheat and rice per month for bpl category even though there will be a slight increase in pds prices as its subsidy element would be 50 per cent of economic cost.

As a result, a person under bpl category would now getwheat and rice at 50 per cent of the economic cost. However persons under the above poverty line (apl) category will have to pay the entire economic cost while availing pds.

The new pds prices will be effective from April one,this year, vasudev said adding food subsidy on bpl in fact has been raised to Rs. 7,457 crore this year from Rs. 5,240 crore. The cut in food subsidy came from the apl category.

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Giving statistics, vasudev said wheat per kilo pricewould go up from Rs. 2.50 kg to Rs. 4.20 a kilo and rice from Rs. 3.50 a kg to Rs. 5.90 a kg, but the allocation of commodity under bpl would be double at 20 kg per month instead of 10 kg earlier.

In real terms persons under bpl category would beroughly saving about Rs. 30 per month per person because of increased allocation even though prices would go up.

Oil import bill to be $13.64 bn in 2000-01

NEW DELHI: The country’s oil import bill is expected to shoot up dramatically, from around $12.5 bn this year, to $13.64 bn in 2000-01. This was stated here, by finance ministry officials. Last year’s bill was itself almost double that of the previous year.

The total import bill is expected to be in the region of $53.47 bn, and gold imports are expected to be $4.25 bn.