Comments
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley should exempt interest on bank deposits from income-tax. It is the salaried class and lower middle-income groups who deposit money in banks. The wealthy prefer stock markets and realty.
Interest on bank deposits is the only source of additional income for most lower-income groups and retired persons.
Tax exemption will come as a great relief to depositors and banks will be saved from the tedious task of TDS. They will also attract more deposits.
S Raghunatha Prabhu
Alappuzha
Plug the leaks
With reference to “Inclusion from the bottom” by Preeti Mehra (June 2), the concurrent audit system to verify the use of funds on rural welfare schemes in Madhya Pradesh is the right tool to assure that every paisa reaches those for whom it is meant.
The concurrent auditor could also be the bridge between the hesitant banker and ignorant people so they can enjoy the fruits of financial inclusion.
NR Nagarajan
Sivakasi
Beyond belief
This refers to the news item, “Cong suspends 2 senior leaders” (June 2). It defies logic how the Congress won’t even dare to think beyond the members of the Nehru-Gandhi family. The unwritten rule is that, whatever happens, no party member may speak against the ‘family’; they may only eulogise them. The party will never be relevant as long as such subservience forms the basis of its ‘articles of association’. CG Kuriakose
Kothamangalam, Kerala
Sold on gold
Your editorial ‘Ease up on gold’ (June 2) rightly points out that it is necessary to ease import to meet domestic demand and curtail smuggling gold. However, any investment in gold should be considered as unproductive for the economy and hence should not be encouraged.
All public sector banks and many NBFCs offer jewel loans which increases liquidity for the commodity. People avail these loans at concessional interest rates as applicable for agricultural purposes but actually for other purposes.
The end use of these loans is never verified. Hence this avenue of liquidity should be closed so that people will be forced to sell jewellery which in turn can reduce the import requirement.
S Kalyanasundaram
The restriction on the import of gold has had positive results on the economy and on our investing habit. Savings should go into more productive assets which will help in economic development. Let us not reverse the good job done. Job losses and customs duties are trivial, plugging forex outflow is more important than revenue collection from customs.
Sridhar Narasimhan
Conducive environment
This refers to the informative article “Modi’s foreign policy challenge” by Stanly Johny (June 2). There are three important challenges the government must deal with: the Sri Lankan Tamil issue, the China-India border issue on the north-east, and India-Pakistan relations made difficult by frequent terrorist attacks in India sponsored by the ISI..
Nevertheless, the atmosphere created during the swearing-in will create a situation conducive to the tackling of these issues.
TR Anandan
Coimbatore
Look and learn
The article ‘Get past the sugar-coating’ by A Vellayan (May 31) is well written. Standalone sugar factories are not a profitable proposition. The capital deployed in co-generation units should be charged a concessional interest rate. The RBI is merely encouraging the palming off of NPA assets to ARCs.
Instead, it should revisit the cases under the Debt Recovery Tribunal and the Asset Securitisation Act pending in courts. The large-scale dodging of recoveries has led to rising NPAs.
Seethalakshmi
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.