FM stepping up tax scrutiny
New Delhi: Worried about a Rs7,000 crore shortfall in excise collections this fiscal, the finance ministry is stepping up scrutiny and audit of companies in sectors showing a fall in revenue collections.

Finance minister P Chidambaram has also asked his advisor Parthasarathi Shome, to undertake a sectoral analysis and identify the reasons for the shortfall.

The follows a review of the tax collection figures by the FM. Ministry officials said that as per the present revenue trends, while service tax and customs duty collections were expected to exceed the Budget targets, direct tax collections were also on course.

The sectors showing a dip in excise collections in the first half of the fiscal include two-wheelers, iron and steel, petroleum products and chewing tobacco.

Apart from this several manufacturing units that have migrated to special category states to get tax breaks and higher 'cenvat' availment will dent the centre's excise mop-up.

The government collected Rs52,685 crore as excise duty during April-October, which was around Rs4,500 crore less than the target.

The government had budgeted Rs1,09,199 crore as excise collection during the current fiscal year, 18.2 per cent higher than the revised estimate of Rs92,379 crore for 2003-04.
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RBI gets tough with banks on customer data
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is getting tough with banks regarding customer data and has asked them to submit periodical data on consumer information to Credit Information Bureau of India (CIBIL).

It has also warned of penal measures if banks and financial institutions do not submit their data.

The RBI had earlier requested banks and FIs to obtain the consent of all their borrowers (not only defaulters) to facilitate submission of details of all borrowing accounts to CIBIL for compiling a credit information database (performing and non-performing), to be accessible to member banks.

The bureau has a database of more than 10 million, which consists of the credit history of individual customers of banks, credit card companies, financial institutions and non-banking finance companies.

Though 70 institutions have submitted their data, a majority of them are inadequate and only 19 institutions are accessing the information. Members can access the data only when they submit information to the credit bureau.
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EMC / EMI test facility to open at Navi Mumbai
Mumbai: The Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (Sameer) has set up an electromagnetic compatability (EMC) testing centre in the satellite township of Navi Mumbai to boost exports of electronic goods from India.

The EMC test facility meets global standards and will be conducting electromagnetic interference (EMI) and EMC measurements as per international and national standards to meet the conducted emission (CE) or 'C' marking norms.

The facility will be operational from 2005.

Sameer has three testing centres — in Chennai, at the IIT campus at Powai in Mumbai and Kolkata. The new facility in Navi Mumbai will have a 3-meter test range with anechoic shielded chamber (to absorb electromagnetic waves) facility for radiated emission (RE) measurements.

EMC is the ability of equipment and systems to function as designed in their intended operational environment without adversely disturbing or being effected by other equipment or systems.

EMI is the phenomenon which causes frequency spectrum pollution, adversely affecting the function of other equipments.
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