TRACKPAD

Government accepts recommendation of Shah Committee on MAT

In a big relief to foreign institutions investing in India, the government has accepted the recommendation of the Shah Committee to clarify inapplicability of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) to foreign institutional investors and portfolio investors (FIIs/FPIs) and has decided that an appropriate amendment to the Income Tax Act will be carried out. Through the amendment, the government proposes to clarify that MAT provisions will not be applicable to FIIs/FPIs not having a place of business and permanent establishment in India for the period prior to April 2015. “Pending such amendment, CBDT will convey to the field formations about the decision of the government to accept the recommendation,” a finance ministry release quoted.

Important to note is that a committee on direct tax matters chaired by Justice A P Shah was constituted with the initial mandate to examine the matter relating to levy of MAT on FIIs/FPIs for the period prior to April 1, 2015. The committee has submitted its final report on applicability of MAT to the government on August 25, 2015. The committee has recommended that Section 115JB of the Income Tax Act may be amended to clarify the inapplicability of MAT provisions to FIIs/FPIs. Alternatively, the committee has suggested that a circular may be issued clarifying the inapplicability of MAT provisions to FIIs/FPIs

A K Jha takes over as CMD NTPC

AK Jha, Director (Technical), NTPC has taken over the additional charge of the post of the Chairman & Managing Director, NTPC. Jha (58) is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from BIT Sindri, Ranchi University and has done LLB from Delhi University. He joined NTPC in 1977 as Executive Trainee. He was directly associated with the NTPC’s flagship Project i.e. Singrauli (5x200 MW) as part of the erection team. He has rich and varied experience of 38 years in NTPC in all the areas of power projects and joined the NTPC Board in July 2012 as Director (Technical). He is responsible for the concept to investment approval of projects, complete engineering during the development of the project, engineering support during O&M phase of the station and engineering for R&M of NTPC’s aged power stations for enhancing life and efficiency of the power plant as well as for the entire fleet of NTPC projects which includes thermal, hydro and renewable. For the renewable portfolio of NTPC, he has the responsibility for policy advocacy, business development, project contracting, engineering and commissioning.

Amitabh Mathur appointed Director (IS&P), BHEL

Amitabh Mathur (57) has assumed charge as Director (Industrial Systems & Products) of Maharatna public sector engineering and manufacturing enterprise Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited. Prior to this, he was heading the company’s Power Sector Eastern Region (PSER), Kolkata as Executive Director. A Mechanical Engineer from Delhi College of Engineering, MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi and an alumnus of Delhi Public School, Mathura Road, Mathur has more than 34 years of rich professional experience in having handled diverse functions in BHEL viz. Marketing, Business Development, Corporate Affairs, Project Management & Execution in BHEL. He was elevated to the position of Executive Director in January 2014. Significantly, under his leadership, the eastern region in BHEL created new benchmarks in project execution. During his stint at PSER, Mathur has successfully handled more than 43 project sites under various stages of implementation across the country and abroad both in power as well as industrial segments. Starting his career in BHEL as an Engineer Trainee in 1981, he has acquired knowledge of all major products in the utility as well as captive segments

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Government To Auction 69 Idle Oil and Gas Fields

In a mark change, government of India will auction 69 idle oil and gas fields of state-owned ONGC and Oil India to private firms on a new revenue sharing model and liberalised terms including pricing and marketing freedom. 

These fields hold around 89 million tonne of oil and gas resources, worth Rs 70,000 crore at current prices. This will be given to explorers offering the maximum revenue from hydrocarbon produced to the government. 

Earlier government use to follow production sharing contract (PSC) and cost recovery model. This is more equitable revenue sharing model that protects government interest in both low oil and high oil price scenarios.  

Bidders will be asked to quote the revenue they will share with the government at low and high end of price and production band to capture windfall of steep rise in prices as well as quantum jump in production. 

Jet Airways will merge its subsidiary Jet Lite with itself.

Jet Airways has announced that it will merge its subsidiary Jet Lite with itself. While the balance sheets of the two entities will be merged, Jet Lite will continue to operate under its separate licence. "Consequent to the merger, Jet Lite will become part of Jet Airways and operate as a separate division of Jet Airways," the airline said. Jet Lite was renamed from Air Sahara which Jet Airways bought from the Sahara group in 2007. The airline was bought with it piles of debt and has since put Jet's balance sheet and bottomline under heavy pressure.

Auto Sales Still In Woods

Auto sales in August dashed all hopes of the sector being out of the woods, as sales by different manufacturers showed a very patchy growth. The figures underline the fact that the market remains soft and some positive numbers in the past few months have been only on the back of some new launches and in other cases, on the back of discounts. Barring M&HCV all the major segments saw decline in sales. The country’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer Hero MotoCorp’s monthly sales for the month of August saw a 14 per cent yearly decline.