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Business & Economy
FM says no to cut in excise
duty on petro products
What is India News Service, Tuesday, 26 April 2005,
1400 hrs IST
Finance minister P Chidambaram had a busy Monday, addressing
thorny issues like streamlining Vat rates, devising desirable credit policy
initiatives and meeting common ground with his petroleum counterpart on petro
products pricing.
While Mr Chidambaram met chairman of empowered
committee on Vat Asim Dasgupta and Reserve Bank of India governor YV Reddy
before lunch with an hour\92s gap between the two meetings, he dealt with
petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar post-lunch.
The finance minister is learnt to have
virtually rejected Mr Aiyar\92s idea of cutting excise duties on petro products,
which the latter argued would help lessen the adverse impact of high crude oil
price on the government, oil companies and consumers.
After his discussions with Mr Chidambaram, the
petroleum minister told presspersons he would now have to go for \93further
clarifications\94 from political parties - read the Left- on how to reduce the
burden on consumers, indicating that a price hike \97 though not immediate \97
was now unavoidable.
\93A fair amount of discussions have to take
place till such time we go back to Cabinet on the pricing issue,\94 Mr Aiyar
said. Having listened to North Block\92s argument \93in considerable detail on
how it would be appropriate to maintain revenue-neutrality about the indirect
taxes on oil sector,\94 the minister hinted at reconsidering the application of
a cess on petro products.
Chidambaram
confident of achieving revenue targets: The Finance Minister, Mr P.
Chidambaram, has expressed confidence over achieving the revenue collection
targets for 2005-06.
How India's re-designing the whole world
:
Indian companies are gearing up for a bigger share of the global design
outsourcing business.
Plan
to hike retirement age to cut EPFO pension liability:
To bring down the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation's (EPFO) pension
liability in the long run, the Government is considering the proposal of
increasing the retirement age from 58 to 60 for those employees who are members
of the Employees'.
Pros ditch foreign jobs to work here: The trend is pronounced for jobs in
the Gulf and Russian markets due to dropping differentials in salary levels.
'Indian
Dental Association watching developments on triclosan': The Indian Dental
Association (IDA) said on Monday that it has not issued any guidance to dentists
so far on the `triclosan' issue, which is causing a stir among oral care
manufacturers globally.
Paper
firms are scaling up:
Companies are investing Rs 5,400 crore to set up fresh capacity.
Anil
agreed to reconsider his resignation from IPCL, reveals letter:
In a development that could further aggravate
the conflict between the two Ambani brothers, it was revealed on Monday that
younger sibling Anil had agreed to reconsider his resignation from the board of
Reliance group company IPCL but failed to get any response from the company
headed by elder brother Mukesh.
Indians to grade British students
: The British press is up in arms against the UK board for outsourcing exam
papers to India for marking.
CLB
rejects petition on Birla:
The Company Law Board on Monday dismissed a
petition seeking probe into who controls M P Birla group flagship company Birla
Corporation.
Carmakers find Indian market hot
:
Almost 44% of internet-savvy Indians topped the list of 'intending buyers' of
cars in Asia.
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