Brussels backs India’s stand on QRs
New Delhi: During the recent formal consultations in Geneva, Brussels expressed satisfaction at New Delhi’s “reasoned” approach explaining the basis for maintaining quantitative import restrictions under Articles 20 and 21 of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT 1944). Brussels, which had earlier kicked up a row on the issue acknowledged that the consultations were “on the whole constructive”, according to commerce ministry officials. New Delhi has been maintaining these restrictions on grounds of the exemption provided under Article 20 and on account of national security considerations under Article 21, officials said.
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Service tax on new items not before July 1
Kolkata: The Union government will not begin levying service tax on the seven new inclusions before July 1, according to Gautam Ray, joint secretary in the finance ministry’s revenue department. The Finance Bill 2003, which has also proposed an increase in the service tax rate from five to eight per cent, is expected to get the President’s assent any day now. Ray said the rate increase combined with the inclusion of the new items is expected to fetch the government an extra Rs 8,500 crore a year, against the Rs 4,000 crore it was getting earlier. Out 58 services to be taxed, the seven new heads are business auxillary services, commercial training institutes, technical institutes, annual maintenance contract, commission services, franchise services and internet services.
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Centre-state meet on drought contingency plans on May 28
New Delhi: The Centre has convened a meeting of agriculture ministers of 18 states at the end of this month to prepare contingency plans to deal with any drought-like situation in the current fiscal. The agenda of the meeting, to be chaired by Union agriculture minister Ajit Singh, includes studying the production and productivity pattern in the drought last year. “It will be a stock taking exercise to prepare for any scarcity of water in the upcoming kharif season in the light of drought last year,” official sources said here. The meeting, scheduled on May 28, will discuss the possible relief measures and advance preparations needed to deal with the situation. However, the discussion will be on strategies not on financing.
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