FAQ

The Tata Power Solar Systems has commissioned India’s largest floating solar power projects of 101.6 MW in Kerala on 25 June 2022.

The project is installed on a 350-acre water body in Kayamkulam, Kerala.

• The Company said that the installation was completed within the stipulated period, despite the arduous challenges of variable water depths, high sea tides, and severe water salinity concerns.
• Tata Power Solar is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Power.
• This project is the first in the Floating Solar Photovoltaic (FSPV) through power purchase agreement category.
• The entire power generated from this plant will be used by Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB).
• The Government of India has set a target of 500 GW of  installed solar power capacity in India by 2030.

The Union Finance Ministry on 25 June 2022 has notified the extension of the levy of GST (Goods and Service Tax) compensation cess by nearly 4 years till March 31, 2026. The levy of the cess was to end on June 30, 2022.

• As per the Goods and Services Tax (Period of Levy and Collection of Cess) Rules, 2022, the compensation cess will continue to be levied from July 1, 2022 to March 31, 2026.
• The levy of cess has been extended to repay the loans taken in the last two fiscal years by the government to make up for the shortfall in their revenue collection.
• When the GST was implemented in India on 1 July 2017, the state governments were assured that they will be compensated by the central government for the potential revenue loss in the transition phase for a period of five years.
• To compensate the state, cess were levied on certain luxury and demerit goods.  Though the state government protected revenue has been growing at 14 percent compounded growth rate, the cess collection did not increase in the same proportion and covid-19 pandemic further reduced the cess collection.
• To compensate the state government during covid pandemic time, the central government decided to borrow from the market.
• The Centre has borrowed and released Rs 1.1 lakh crore in 2020-21 and Rs 1.59 lakh crore in 2021-22 to meet a part of the shortfall in cess collection.
• The Centre has repaid Rs 7,500 crore as interest cost for the borrowing in 2021-22 and Rs 14,000 crore is to be paid this fiscal year. From 2023-24, the repayment of principal amount will start which will continue till March 2026.
• To fund the loan repayment and help the state, the government has decided to continue to levy the compensation cess on luxury and demerit goods, like tobacco, cigarettes, hookah, aerated waters, high-end motorcycles, aircraft, yacht and motor vehicles.

GST is an Indirect tax system which has replaced many central and state government Indirect tax.

Cess : It is also called as  tax on tax . It is an extra tax which is levied on existing taxes. 

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 23 June 2022 has increased the limit of housing loans provided by the Urban Cooperative Banks (UCB).The last time these limits were revised was in 2011.

New Limit 

The tier 1 UCB can provide home loans upto Rs 60 lakh, the earlier limit was Rs 30 Lakhs 

The tier II UCB can now provide a maximum housing loan upto Rs 1.4 crore. Earlier the limit was Rs 70 Lakhs.

Exposure Limits

• RBI has reduced the exposure limits of UCBs to a group of connected borrowers from the previous limit of 40 per cent to 25 percent.
• The loan exposure limit for a single borrower for UCBs remains unchanged at 15 per cent.
• The exposure limits of UCBs to the housing, real estate, and commercial real estate sector has been limited at a fixed 10 percent of the total assets of the respective UCB.

Other new rules for UCB

• UCBs cannot charge foreclosure charges or pre-payment penalties on home loans extended on a floating interest rate basis. 
• Housing loans issued by UCBs should be repayable within a maximum period of 20 years. 

Urban Cooperative Banks 

Urban Cooperative Banks are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India.

UCB has been classified into two by RBI. 

Tier -1 UCB

Tier-I UCBs are those UCB which satisfy the following criteria:

• Banks having deposits below ₹100 crore operating in a single district
• Banks with deposits below ₹100 crore operating in more than one district will be treated as Tier I provided the branches are in contiguous districts and deposits and advances of branches in one district separately constitute at least 95% of the total deposits and advances respectively of the bank and
• Banks with deposits below ₹100 crore, whose branches were originally in a single district but subsequently, became multi-district due to reorganization of the district

Tier-II UCB 

 UCB which are not tier-I are considered as Tier-II UCB.

The World Bank has approved a USD 245 million loan to support India’s efforts to modernize rail freight and logistics infrastructure.

The Rail Logistics project will help India shift more traffic from road to rail, making transport — both freight and passenger — more efficient and reducing millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) each year.

•  The loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) was approved by the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors and has a maturity of 22 years, including a grace period of seven years.
• According to the National Rail Vision 2030, the aim of the Indian Railways is to increase the share of Railways in the total freight in India, to 45% by 2030.
• In 2020, Indian Railways share of the freight in India was 17% while the road sector was 71 %. 
• Indian Railways is the fourth-largest rail freight network in the world after the United States, China and Russia.

IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development)

• It is an arm of the World Bank Group.
•  It is the largest development bank in the world.
• It provides loans to the middle income and low income countries to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development.

Headquarters: Washington D.C, United States 

Member Countries: 189

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a new portal - NIRYAT (National Import-Export Record for Yearly Analysis of Trade) - which is developed as a one stop platform for stakeholders to get all necessary information related to India’s foreign trade.

He also inaugurated the new premises of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry - ‘Vanijya Bhawan’ . Constructed near India Gate, the Vanijya Bhawan is designed as a smart building which incorporates the principles of sustainable architecture with a special focus on energy saving. 

It will serve as an integrated and modern office complex that will be used by the two Departments under the Ministry i.e. Department of Commerce and Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

Union Minister for Commerce and Industry: Piyush Goel

According to the World Gold Council (WGC) report titled ‘Gold refining and recycling’, India has been ranked the fourth in the world for recycling 75 tonnes of gold in 2021.

China topped the chart by recycling 168 tonnes of the gold, followed by Italy in the second position with 80 tonnes and the US at the third rank with 78 tonnes in 2021.

The report estimated that from 2013 to 2021, India’s gold refining capacity increased by 1,500 tonnes, or 500%, to 1,800 tonnes. Furthermore, over the past five years 11% of the country’s gold supply came from ‘old gold’; driven by movements in the gold price, future gold price expectations and wider economic outlook.

It expects the holding periods of jewellery will continue to decline in India as younger consumers look to change designs more frequently. 

This trend could contribute to higher levels of recycling of gold in India.

 World Gold Council

It is an association of leading gold mining companies in the world.

It works to promote gold as a suitable investment for individuals, companies, etc.

Headquarters: London, England 

Leading Indian private sector bank, Yes Bank has launched a floating rate repo rate-linked fixed deposit which will be linked to the existing repo rate.

It means that if the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) increases the policy repo rate then the interest rate on the Fixed Deposit will also increase automatically and if the RBI decreases the repo rate then the interest rate on the FD will decrease automatically.

However the bank will use the repo rate of the previous month to reset the interest rate on the FD. It means that if the RBI has increased the repo rate to 5% from 4.9% in June month then the bank will increase the interest rate of the FD by 0.1% in July.

The bank will offer a mark-up rate (additional interest rate) in addition to the existing repo rate. For deposits with tenure between a year and 18 months, the bank will offer a mark-up rate of 1.1% in addition to the repo rate. For deposits maturing between 18 months and 3 years, the mark-up rate will be 1.6%. 

Currently, the policy repo rate stands at 4.90%.  It means that FD with a tenure between a year and 18 months will get an interest rate of 6 %( Repo rate of 4.9%+1.1% mark-up rate).  

The bank will accept a minimum deposit amount of Rs 10,000, with the tenure ranging from a year to 3 years. 

Senior citizens (60years-80 years) will get an additional 0.5% interest rate for deposits of less than Rs 2 crore. 

The bank will also offer an overdraft facility on up to 90% of the principal value of the FD.

Points to be noted 

RBI has allowed the banks the freedom to offer additional interest rates on Term Deposits. The interest rates on deposits are decided by the banks themselves.

Term deposits include Fixed Deposit and Recurring Deposits.

Policy repo rate is the rate at which RBI provides short term loans (up to 24 hours) to the banks.

Yes Bank  

It is a private sector scheduled commercial bank in India, founded in 2004 

Headquarters: Mumbai 

Chairman: Sunil Kumar 

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director (MD): Prashant Kumar 

Tagline: Experience our expertise.

Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) Hardeep Singh Puri launched an innovative project named National Initiative for Promoting Upskilling of Nirman workers (NIPUN) for skill training of 100,000 construction workers on 20 June 2022.

The NIPUN project was launched under the Ministry’s flagship scheme of the Deendayal Antyodaya-Yojana National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM) to train construction workers through fresh skilling and upskilling programs which will provide them with work opportunities in foreign countries also.

Nodal agency of NIPUN 

The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), under the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Government of India will implement the NIPUN project.

Feature of the scheme

The NIPUN project implementation is divided into three parts,

•  training through Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) at construction sites,
•  training through Fresh skilling by Plumbing and Infrastructure SSC, and 
• International Placement through industries, builders, and contractors. 

Onsite skill training will be provided to approximately 80,000 construction workers through industry associations under the RPL (Recognition of Prior learning) certification, while about 14,000 candidates will receive fresh skilling through plumbing and infrastructure Sector Skill Council (SSC) in trades having promising placement potentials.

Under NIPUN, it is also envisaged that NSDC will place approximately 12,000 people in foreign countries such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, UAE and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

NSDC will be responsible for the overall execution of training, monitoring and candidate tracking. It will provide trainees with

•  ‘Kaushal Bima’, a three-year accidental insurance with coverage of Rs 2 lakhs, 
• digital skills such as cashless transactions and the BHIM app, 
• orientation about entrepreneurship, and EPF(Employees Provident Fund) and Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) facilities.

Capital market regulator SEBI (Securities Exchange Board of India) has set up an advisory committee on hybrid securities, which will make recommendations for giving a push to the growth of such instruments, including measures focusing on ease of issuance and attracting domestic and global capital.

Hybrid instruments are financial instruments which include the features of both equity shares and debt instruments. 

Chairman of the committee

The 20-member committee will be chaired by K V Kamath, Chairperson of National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development.

In addition, the committee comprises top level officials of Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs), Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), finance as well as legal experts and representatives of SEBI.

REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust) and InvITs (Infrastructure and Investment Funds) are classified as hybrid securities and they are relatively new investment instruments in the Indian context.

Function of the committee

The committee has been given the task of advising SEBI on issues related to development and regulation of primary and secondary markets of hybrid securities in the country.

It will identify use case scenarios of hybrid securities in the context of the infrastructure financing needs of the Indian economy and make recommendations for developing instruments to meet the needs of the infrastructure sector

SEBI 

Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) was set up on 12 April 1988 and it was given statutory status by the SEBI Act 1992 on 30 January 1992.

• It comes under the Ministry of Finance, Government of India.
• It is the regulator of the Capital market and Commodities market in India.
• The first SEBI chairman was Dr. S A Dave (1988-90)
• Madhabi Puri Buch is the current and 10th Chairperson of the SEBI.

The first tranche of Sovereign Gold Bond or SGB scheme for the 2022-23 financial year opened for subscription on 20 June 2022. The issue price has been fixed at ₹5,091 per gram of gold.

• The Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme 2022-23 - Series I will remain open till June 24, 2022. 
• Investors who apply online and make payment online get a discount of ₹50 per gram. For such investors, the issue price will be ₹5,041 per gram. 
• The date of issuance to the investor who has applied for the bond will be June 28, 2022. 
• The second tranche (2022-23 Series II) will be available for subscription during August 22-26, 2022. 

Why was it launched 

The Sovereign Gold Bond scheme was launched by the RBI in 2015. The objective of this scheme was to encourage people not to invest in gold as money invested in gold is considered as unproductive investment.

Instead people were encouraged to buy sovereign gold bonds. 

The repayment on the bond was guaranteed by the Government of India and people would also be able to earn extra interest on it. 

The money collected in this way will be used by the government for investment in those areas of the economy, which will lead to economic development of the country.

Features of the Sovereign Gold Bond 

• The bond is issued by the Reserve Bank of India on behalf of the Government of India 
• Resident Indians, individuals, Hindu Undivided Family, trusts, universities and charitable institutions can invest in the bonds.
• The bonds are issued in denominations of one gram of gold and in multiples thereof.
• The Minimum permissible investment is one gram of gold.
• The maximum investment limit is 4 kg for individuals, 4 kg for Hindu Undivided Family and 20 kg for trusts and similar entities notified by the government from time to time. 
•  The sovereign gold bonds mature in eight years, with an option of premature redemption after the fifth year.
• After 8 years RBI redeems the gold bond in Indian rupees at the average price of gold prevalent at that time. 
•  Investors are paid a fixed rate of interest of 2.5% per annum payable semi-annually on the issue price of the bond.
• Bonds are sold through offices or branches of Nationalized Banks, Scheduled Private Banks, Scheduled Foreign Banks, designated Post Offices, Stock Holding Corporation of India Ltd. and the authorized stock exchanges either directly or through their agents.
•  These bonds are traded on the stock exchange and it can be bought and sold on the exchanges.
• SGB can be used as a collateral in taking loans from the banks.