Finance Ministry

In addition to this, the monthly review added that hiring by firms is likely to witness an improvement in upcoming quarters driven by a rebound in new business gains as firms continue to benefit from the lifting of the Covid-19 restrictions and the possible sustaining of the sales momentum witnessed during the festival season.

The finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman exhorted the NIIF team to also explore opportunities under the National Infrastructure Pipeline, PM GatiShakti and National Infrastructure Corridor, which include a big pool of investible greenfield and brownfield investment projects.

The bonds shall be valid for 15 calendar days from the date of issue and no payment shall be made to any payee political party if the electoral bond is deposited after expiry of the validity period.The electoral bond deposited by an eligible political party in its account shall be credited on the same day, official sources said.

With this, the total RDG released to states so far in the current financial year has gone up to Rs 57,467.33 crore. This was the eighth instalment of the grant for the current fiscal released to states.In 2022-23, the states will get a total RDG of Rs 86,201 crore.

"Indian economic performance in the first half of 2022-23 has been impressive compared to the world. As measured by PMI composite index, the economic activity level was higher for India at 56.7 compared to 51.0 for the World level during April-Sept 2022," said the economic review which was released on Saturday by the Finance Ministry.

Addressing a news conference on Friday at the end of her visit for the annual meetings of the World Bank group, which were accompanied by 24 bilateral meetings, the finance minister also gave a broad overview of India's priorities for its upcoming year-long rotational presidency of the G-20 group of countries -- essentially, focusing on bilateral development banks, climate finance and cryptocurrency.

Apart from this, the Centre also increased the SAED on the export of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) to Rs 3.50 per litre from nil in the last review. Similarly, the windfall tax on the export of diesel has been increased from Rs 5 per litre to Rs 10.50 per litre. A notification regarding the above changes was issued by the Ministry of Finance on Saturday.

Platinum and palladium for use in manufacture of precious metal chemicals, compounds (noble metal compounds and solutions) and catalytic converters will continue at basic customs duty of 7.5 per cent subject to IGCR. Rhodium will also continue with BCD of 2.5 per cent.

According to IMCOM, the change in duties has led to a situation where the industry's input cost has reduced only marginally, while the import prices of the output product (met coke) have declined by a much larger quantum. This has led to significant price suppression for the industry as it is no longer able to recoup its cost due to the injuriously low prices of met coke imports.

The full-year borrowing target was brought down to Rs 14.21 lakh crore from the original Rs 14.31 lakh crore which was mentioned in the Union Budget for 2022-23. The borrowing plan for the second half of the current fiscal includes raising Rs 16,000 crore through issuance of sovereign green bonds (SGrBs) as per the announcement made in the Union Budget 2022-23.