Diesel sales tax cut to 28 pc in Maharashtra
Mumbai: The Maharashtra cabinet has approved the proposal to cut sales tax on diesel from 33 pc to 28 pc in Mumbai and Thane and from 30 pc to 25 pc in the rest of the state.

This is after petroleum dealers from the state had launched a 'no purchase' agitation to press their demand for reduction of sales tax on diesel as they were losing business to petrol pumps from neighbouring states.

Government officials said the actual reduction in diesel rate worked out to be around 8.33 pc as the state had also decided to abolish Re1 surcharge on diesel and the reduction in sales tax will lead to a loss of around Rs150 crore in the remaining four months of the current financial year.

Today's reduction has brought the state's diesel sales tax rates on par with neighbouring states except Andhra Pradesh and Goa where it is around 22 pc.
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IT exports could touch $60 bn by 2010: Nasscom
Nagpur: Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said the country's IT exports could touch $60 billion by 2010 from about $23 billion at present, which works out to a growth rate of 30 pc and would also generate huge employment opportunities for 2.5 lakh IT professionals, he said.

He said IT industry was playing a big role every sphere, be it banking, automobile, airlines or aviation and more efficiently in construction business.
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Govt looking at hiking FDI in aviation to 74 pc
New Delhi: The government is considering a proposal to raise the foreign investment cap in domestic carriers from 49 per cent to 74 per cent due to the failure of the existing regime to bring in substantial foreign direct investment in the sector.

However, the ban on foreign airlines investing in domestic carriers will stay. Even foreign equity funds in which airline companies remain barred.

Meanwhile restrictions on the composition of an airline's board are expected to be relaxed. The present policy restricts the number of foreign members of an airline board to a third of its total size and prevents a foreign national from being the chairman of the board. The restrictions were put in place to ensure that control over airlines stayed in the hands of Indian nationals.

The proposed civil aviation policy is expected to detail the changes.
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Mobile phone services to be extended to 2.5 lakh remote villages
New Delhi: The mobile services project being undertaken by the Government under the Universal Services Obligation is expected to cover 2.5 lakh remote villages across the country, size varying from a single household village to those having a few hundred people. Uttar Pradesh with 38,763 villages under the project is the biggest beneficiary followed by Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.

The Department of Telecom has shortlisted 21 companies to set up the passive infrastructure for rolling out 10,000 towers across these villages with financial support from the Universal Services Obligation fund.

Under the proposed infrastructure project, only those rural and remote areas will be covered, where fixed wireless or mobile services are not being provided currently.

Mobile operators currently cover only 25 per cent of the country's geographical area. Therefore, the new project will be focussed entirely on rural and remote areas and towns and cities will be excluded from the purview of the project.

The DoT has plotted the location of the existing towers on a GIS map which is being utilised for this project to enable identification of rural and remote areas not covered by mobile services. Rural India comprises 6,38, 499 villages, out of which about 44,856 villages are uninhabited as per the Census 2001. The remaining 5,94, 000 inhabited villages account for 72.22 per cent of the total population of the country.
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SEZ tax sops to incur more than Rs1 lakh cr cost in 4-yr period
New Delhi: As more SEZs have been approved the Finance Ministry has hiked the estimated revenue loss from tax concessions to such zones to over Rs 1 lakh crore for the four-year period 2006-07 to 2009-10. The revenue department has estimated that revenue loss for this period could be as high as Rs1,02,621 crore. Of this, the loss on direct taxes account is estimated to be Rs53,740 crore and indirect tax concessions are expected to generate additional losses to the tune of Rs48,881 crore.

Six months ago the Finance Ministry had estimated that revenue loss on account of concessions extended to SEZs would be in the region of Rs93,904 crore. The revised figure is Rs8,717 crore higher. The Finance Ministry has said the Government was engaged in a continuous process of improving compliance and augmenting revenue collection.

While the Finance Ministry has been highlighting the magnitude of revenue loss to the exchequer from the tax concessions, the Commerce Ministry contends that there would be a positive gain in revenue for the Government in the next five years. The Commerce Ministry is of the view that the generation of additional economic activity and employment would more than offset the loss of tax revenues due to the tax concessions given under the SEZ Act.
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Inflation falls marginally to 5.29 pc
New Delhi: The annual wholesale price index rose 5.29 per cent during the week ended November 11, and was marginally lower than the previous week's annual rise of 5.30 per cent.

During the latest reported week, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) for all commodities rose 0.05 per cent to 208.9 points as manufactured and non-food items turned slightly costlier.

The index was 198.4 points during the corresponding week a year ago. The annual inflation rate was at 4.09 per cent during the corresponding week of the previous year. On a disaggregated basis, the primary articles' group index was up 0.1 per cent to 214.5 points as some food and non-food items turned costlier during the latest reported week.
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