Finance News

Finance minister Pranabh Mukherjee has told reporters in New Delhi that he will be raising the issue of inflation with State finance ministers when he meets them on January 19. He will be meeting the state finance ministers to discuss about the forth coming union budget.

Mr Mukherjee indicated that the current level of food inflation is not acceptable and need to be tackled.

In the meantime, inflation has increased to 8.43 percent in December from a 7.48 in November.

Document identification number or DIN is the new system of identification number that Income tax department has introduced for the tax payers.

The DIN will be generated by the income tax department and is made mandatory for any income tax related communication including filing of income tax returns. Any communication that does not include the Document identification number (DIN) will be considered invalid according to section 282b of the Income Tax Act.

Finance Minister Mr. Pranabh Mukherjee says he will stick to the 8.5 percent growth for the current fiscal despite IMF forecasting a higher 9.5% growth for the countries economy.

Finance Minister was speaking at a conference hosted by industry body CII in New Delhi. Mr Mukherjee also said that the effect of Eurozone crisis will have very less impact on the country and he appreciated Indian banking sector for its descipline and maintaining a stable financial environment.

India has made clear that it preferrs better regulatory mechanism instead of imposing levy on banks for future bail outs.

Finance Minister Pranabh Mukherjee conveyed India's stand to the chairman of the presidential committee for the G-20 meeting on Friday.

While US, Britain and many European countries are supporting a levy on banks and other financial institutions, countries like India, Canada and Australia are opposed to the idea.

Reserve bank of India (RBI) today hiked the short-term lending and borrowing rates and the portion of money banks deposit with it by 25 basis points each.

The repurchase rate (repo), reverse repurchase rate (reverse repo) to 5.25 per cent and 3.75 per cent, respectively. It also set the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) to 6 per cent.

In preparation of the Union budget 2010-2011, Minister of Finance Mr Pranabh Mukherjee will meet Industry leaders today. He will be meeting leading industrialists and also representatives of Ficci, CII and Assocham.

The Union budget for year 2010-2011 will be presented on February.

Finance Minister Pranabh Mukherjee has indicated that controlling inflation is the highest priority for the Government. While answering questions from MPs in the Parliament, Mr. Mukherjee said "Government is monitoring the price situation on regular basis"

Previously the government had indicated its willingness to import essential commodities in order to contain the price rise.

The Indian food prices have touched a ten-year high.