Latest news with #PankajChoudhary
New Indian Express
29-07-2025
- Business
- New Indian Express
Govt collected Rs 22.21 lakh crore cess during FY2020-25
The government has transferred Rs 24.29 lakh crore cess proceeds to various designated reserve funds during 2019-20 to 2024-25 as against total collection of about Rs 22.21 lakh crore, the finance ministry informed parliament on Tuesday. Responding to a question by Trinamool Congress MP Sushmita Dev, Minister of state for Finance Pankaj Choudhary told Rajya Sabha that the proceeds of such surcharge and cess go towards meeting certain specific needs such as financing of centrally sponsored schemes. The minister did not explain the excess utilisation of taxes over total collection. However, economists said that the same could be due to borrowings by the central government to compensate the states for losses due to implementation of GST. 'The benefits of such expenditure also percolate to the states,' said the minister to a question if the government is considering including them in the divisible pool of taxes shared with the states. Article 270 of the Indian Constitution excludes the surcharge on taxes and duties and any cess levied for specific purposes under any law made by Parliament from the distribution between the Union and states. The minister tabled a chart in parliament showing various cess and surcharge collected from 2020-21 till 2024-25, and the estimated collection for 2025-26. From 2020-21 to 2024-25, the total cess and surcharge collected was Rs 19.4 lakh crore, a third of which has been collected through GST compensation cess. Road and infra cess, which also includes additional duty of excise on petrol and diesel (which were known as road cess before introduction of road and infrastructure cess), accounted for 30% of the total collection of cess and surcharge, health and education cess, and agri infra development cess accounted for 16% each. Cess and surcharge collected through corporate and income tax accounted for Rs 4 lakh crore during 2020-21 to 2024-25.
The Hindu
10-06-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
FSDC looks into enhancing cybersecurity, easing KYC norms
The Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC), an apex regulatory body chaired by the Union Minister of Finance, on Tuesday (June 10, 2025) examined various ways to enhance the cyber resilience framework of the Indian financial sector and ease the compliance burden on customers. The FSDC held its 29th meeting in Mumbai on Tuesday (June 10, 2025). Apart from the chairperson, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the meeting was also attended by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Choudhary, senior officers of the Ministry of Finance, and the heads of various financial sector regulators. 'In light of the analysis of cybersecurity regulations, sectoral preparedness, and the recommendations of Financial Sector Assessment Programme (FSAP) 2024-25, the FSDC considered strengthening the cyber resilience framework of the Indian financial sector through a financial sector-specific cybersecurity strategy,' the Ministry of Finance said in a release. The FSDC also looked into ways to implement past decisions, such as reducing the amount of unclaimed assets in the financial sector, including in bank deposits, dividends, shares, post office accounts, insurance and pension funds and a quick and seamless refund of such assets to rightful owners. Another issue the FSDC looked into was to prescribe common know-your-customer (KYC) norms and simplify the KYC process including for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in the Indian securities market.
