Finance Ministry

Nirmala Sitharaman made the remark on the first day of the G20 Finance Ministers Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting, which commenced in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. Debt restructuring can be a solution to the global debt crisis, as it is closely intertwined with addressing global poverty challenge, the Union Minister said, noting that it adversely affects the most indebted countries as they also house the poorest people.

She will also be attending the G20 meetings and other associated meetings, which are scheduled to take place from April 10 to April 16. The meetings will take place in the WBG and IMF headquarters in Washington DC. The Spring Meetings will be attended by finance ministers and central bankers from across the world.

The currency slumped 1 per cent (or Rs 2.86) to Rs287.90 against the greenback at around 10.23 a.m. on Tuesday. A day earlier, the rupee had closed at Rs 285.04 per US dollar, the Express Tribune reported. Last month, the rupee had hit a record low, closing at Rs 285.09 per US dollar on February 3, it added.

Direct tax collections (provisional) for 2022-23 have exceeded the revised estimates by 0.69 per cent. The budget estimates (BE) for direct tax revenue in the Union Budget for 2022-23 were fixed at Rs 14.20 lakh crore, which were revised to Rs 16.50 lakh crore. The provisional direct tax collections (net of the refunds) have exceeded the budget estimates by 16.97 per cent and revised estimates by 0.69 per cent.

As per the data by the Ministry of Finance, the value of assets seized during the year 2021-22 was Rs 880.83 crore which increased to Rs 1,159.59 crore in the year 2021-22 and to Rs 1,533.23 crore in the year 2022-23 (till January 2023, provisional figures), Minister of State for Finance, Pankaj Chaudhary told the Lok Sabha in a reply.

According to finance ministry sources, between 2018-19 and 2021-22, cases registered by ED rose by 505 per cent, as from 195 cases recorded by ED in 2018-19, the cases recorded by the agency went up to 1,180 in 2021-22. Even the number of searches conducted by ED have rise by a huge 2,555 per cent between 2004-14 and 2014-22. As per finance ministry's own data, only 112 searches were carried out by ED between 2004-14 which resulted in attachment of proceeds of crime worth Rs 5,346 crore.

Today is the last day of the current financial year 2022-23. Dividends and profits earned by the government from PSUs belong to the capital budget. Government also received Rs 503 crore and Rs 23 crore from HAL and Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited (MIDHANI) respectively as dividend tranches.

In Union Budget 2023-24, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the revamping of Credit Guarantee Scheme for Micro & Small Enterprises with effect from April 1, 2023, with an infusion of Rs 9,000 crore to the corpus to enable additional collateral-free guaranteed credit of Rs. 2 lakh crore and the reduction in the cost of the credit by about 1 per cent.

The STT for futures trading remains the same, as was announced in the amendments to the Finance Bill 2023, i.e., it has been raised to 0.0125 per cent from 0.01 per cent. The hikes in STT for both futures and options trading would be effective from April 1, 2023.

Cess and surcharges are levied by the Central government for the purposes of the Union under Article 271 of the Constitution of India. The proceeds of such surcharge and cess go towards meeting certain specific needs such as financing of centrally-sponsored schemes.