DIBRUGARH, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8
BUSINESS
PAGE 10
I-T dept allowed by CBDT to use emails to curb graft
New Year to be full of startup policy for Indians Bengaluru, Dec 7: The government is gearing up to unveil a new policy for promoting startups in January 2016 with an eye on boosting innovation, entrepreneurship and creating new jobs. "We will come up with a full package of ideas and incentives for the Startup India initiative announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence day address to the nation," said a senior government official working on the policy, adding that it is likely to be announced next month. "The Startup India policy would be a set of significant measures to encourage entrepreneurship in the economy and we hope it would become a game-changer in making the ecosystem conducive for new ventures," the official said.
The policy, officials said, would bolster and complement the other initiatives already launched to promote new enterprises such as the Mudra scheme, short for Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency. Over 70 lakh people have got loans under Mudra, amounting to Rs. 44,000 crore, as of last Friday, December 4. "This indicates swift disbursals are underway. In his radio program 'Mann Ki Baat on November 29, the Prime Minister had said that 66 lakh people had been granted loans amounting to Rs.42,000 crore," the official pointed out. Separately, the Rs.2,000 crore fund of funds for venture capital investments has almost entirely drawn down its corpus, the official added. Finance
Eating out, movies, air and train travel to cost more from April 1
New Delhi, Dec 7: The Goods and services Tax, once implemented, is likely to make the cost of services charged in restaurants, telephony, train or flights tickets, beauty parlours, gyms etc. more expensive. GST will replace all the other other indirect taxes like the central excise duty, value added tax, service tax, octroi, luxury tax etc. with one tax rate of 17-
18%. As per a report, a panel headed by chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian has suggested a 'standard rate' of 17-18% on most goods and services. Quoting Saloni Roy, senior director, Deloitte (India), the report added that services will see rise in prices as the tax rate will increase from 14% to 17-18% once GST is implemented. The government plans to roll out Goods and Services Tax (GST) from April 1 2016. A Constitution Amendment Bill on GST is currently stuck in the Rajya Sabha due to differences among the political parties. (Agencies)
13% growth in India’s adspends next year: Zenith Optimedia Contd. from Page 1
Digital is expected to grow upwards of 20%, while all other media are expected to grow 5-10%. E-commerce, telecom, mobile phones expected to have the maximum growth followed by automobiles and FMCGs, it said. While adspend growth is slowing in three out of the four Bric (Brazil, Russia, India, China) markets that were responsible for much of last decade's ad market expansion, India continues to combine rapid growth and large scale, making it a distinct hot-spot of adspend growth. The market is benefiting from sustained, healthy economic growth and strengthening personal consumption. With ad spends growing at double-digit annual rates here, Zenith Optimedia expects the market to expand by $3 billion between 2015 and 2018. Globally, Zenith Optimedia predicts ad expenditure will grow 4.7% next year to touch $579 billion, a 0.8 percentage point improvement over 2015: 2016 would be a 'quadrennial' year, when ad expenditure would be boosted by Summer Olympics, the US presidential elections and the UEFA football championship in Europe. "The global ad market has enjoyed stable growth since 2011, with growth rates ranging between 4% and 5% a year, and we expect it to maintain this pace for the rest of the forecast period," the report said. Interestingly, while television is currently the dominant advertising medium with a 38% share of total adspend (in 2015), in 2018, Zenith Optimedia expects internet to overtake television to become the largest single advertising medium. According to the report, one of the reasons for television's loss of share is the rapid growth of paid search, which is essen-
tially a direct response channel (together with classified), while television is the preeminent brand awareness channel – and we expect it to remain so for many years to come. Audiovisual advertising as a whole – television plus online video – is gaining its share of display advertising. Television offers unparalleled capacity to build reach, while online video offers pinpoint targeting and personalisation of marketing messages. Both are powerful tools for establishing brand awareness and associations, it said. Audiovisual advertising will account for a record 48.4% of display advertising in 2015, up from 44.1% in 2010, and its share can be expected to reach 48.9% in 2018. Also, in 2018, mobile advertising will overtake desktop and account for 50.2% of all internet advertising. Programmatic advertising will account for more than half of digital display advertising (53%) for the first time this year, and will increase its share to 60% in 2016. "We expect programmatic advertising to grow another 34% in 2016 and 26% in 2017, at which point two-thirds of global display will be programmatic," the report said. At regional level, fast-track Asian economies (China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam) are growing extremely rapidly as they adopt western technologies and practices while benefiting from the rapid inflow of funds from investors hoping to tap into this growth. China accounts for 74% of adspend in fast-track Asia, so its slowdown naturally has a large effect on the region as a whole. The expectation is ad expenditure in fasttrack Asia would grow 8.9% in 2015, and at an average rate of 8.4% a year between 2015 and 2018, down from 14.7% a year between 2009 and 2014. (Agencies)
Minister Arun Jaitley had launched the India Aspiration Fund, set up under the Small Industries Development Bank of India or SIDBI, this August. "Nearly 90 per cent of the venture capital in Indian startups is coming from overseas. We are trying to create a domestic VC industry and the Rs.2,000 crore allotted from this fund would enable seed funding for entrepreneurs and innovators," the official said, adding that a fresh tranche of funds would be announced for the fund in financial year 2016-17. "We need innovations that solve Indian consumers' problems, with a grassroots-level movement. Foreign venture capital firms tend to have a bias towards replicating business
NEW YEAR BOOST The government is gearing up to unveil a new policy for promoting startups in January 2016 with an eye on boosting innovation, entrepreneurship and creating new jobs. The Startup India policy would be a set of significant measures to encourage entrepreneurship in the economy and the government hopes it would become a game-changer in making the ecosystem conducive for new ventures. models proven in developed countries," he explained. Mr. Modi had said on August 15 that
The policy would bolster and complement the other initiatives already launched to promote new enterprises such as the Mudra scheme, short for Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency. Over 70 lakh people have got loans under Mudra, amounting to Rs. 44,000 crore, as of December 4.
Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. Source: www.dailyvedas.com
Nearly 90 per cent of the venture capital in Indian startups is coming from overseas.
Separately, the Rs.2,000 crore fund of funds for venture capital investments has almost entirely drawn down its corpus.
the government is looking at systems for enabling startups. "We must be Number 1 in
startups... 'Startup India' & 'Stand up India," the PM had said. (Agencies)
New Delhi, Dec 7: The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has notified an amendment in the Income Tax Act that would allow the department to serve notices to taxpayers through their registered emails and would also make it legitimate for assessees to file their responses and authenticated documents through electronic mails. The measure has been initiated to limit public interface of I-T officials
ried out in the five metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Chennai. "This will eliminate the necessity of visiting income tax offices by the taxpayers, particularly in smaller cases involving limited issues and where the taxpayer is able to provide details required by the assessing officer without necessitating his physical presence," the CBDT said. The amendment was made in Section 282
with taxpayers and make all interactions recorded over emails. This is intended to curb alleged corrupt practices in the department, where it is often claimed that I-T officers unnecessarily raise new queries after every interaction. The department had earlier launched a pilot project to check how the new mechanism could be implemented across the country without glitches. The test check was car-
of the I-T Act (service of notice) allowing for inclusion of taxpayers or taxpaying entities' email as the new mode of official communication along with existing modes like courier, postage or departmental dispatch. The tax department can now send official communication to "email address available in the last income tax return furnished by the taxpayers or in the case of addressee being a company, email address of the company". (Agencies)
Free virtual school of Khan Academy funded by Tata Mumbai, Dec 7: Khan Academy and Tata trusts have teamed up to build a quality, free virtual school. The philanthropic arm of the Tata Group has granted an undisclosed sum to the academy, a non-profit set up by US-born-and-based math whiz Salman Khan - whose mother is from Bengal and father from Bangladesh - to develop courses for Indian learners. For the next five years, Khan will build a platform, adapt Indian courseware and scale up to provide free access to education to students in India. The first two years will focus on designing a set of educational resources for middle and low-income students in urban India with an early focus on math and science that is aligned to lo-
Industrialist Ratan Tata (left) shakes hands with founder and CEO Khan academy, Salman. Source: www.livemint.com
cal curricula. Additional content will be developed in the next three years. It may also get into the test preparation space as it has done with SAT in the US. "I forget the exact sum, but we will support the academy with all that is needed to be done in India," said Tata Group's chairman
emeritus Ratan Tata. Talks are also on with some celebrities with wide reach to promote this idea of world class free education. A Hindi portal has rolled out. "We have a large body of work and when we build our team in India, we will start with developing content creation capac-
ity. We have English videos that we will subtitle and also some will be dubbed. But we are looking for other Sals here," said Khan, who is often described as the first global rockstar teacher. Khan Academy will set up office in Delhi and this partnership will look at hiring Indian teachers and teach in Indian languages through videos that are mapped to the Indian education system, especially NCERT textbooks. "We are not challenging the traditional means of classroom education, but we do want to catalyze new classrooms for the 21st century," said Khan. "The Prussian method of schooling has been prevalent since the 19th century. We have to adapt to new methodologies for the 21st century." (Agencies)
Indian e-pay firms targeted by New York-based Sridhar Chitalya Kolkata, Dec 7: New York-based Sridhar Chityala, founder of venture capital firms Vedas Group and Elevate Innovation Partners, is set to enter India with plans to invest in financial tech and mobile payment companies. "We are talking to two prospective ventures, including one promoted by some wellknown senior industry people based in Bangalore. They are into fintech and mobile payment solutions. Without their approval, it won't be fair to reveal their names," Chityala, co-founder of the Global Payments Council who is raising $150 million under his EIP fund, said. He also plans to pick up stakes in other fin-tech and mobile payment companies and co-manage India specific funds, Chityala said during his India visit to firm up investments. He is also looking to become a co-investor in or co-promoter of India focused fund. Mobile wallets, remittances, small business, car and personal loans, portfolio management schemes, next generation of mortgages, insurance, forex transfers, entertainment e-commerce all riding on the digital platform are what interest Chityala. "Indian e-payment sector is at a nascent and native stage
and would soon enter the second stage of evolution where it would see small adjacent developments while in the third stage they will truly expand in scope where we need to come in. A standalone mobile-wallet doesn't have a future as it doesn't create any value. As unbanked people are brought into the electronic platform making them part of digital consumption story, mobile wallets will re-craft the whole engagement," Chityala said. Chityala, who passed out of IIT Bombay, left India for the US where he played a leadership role in the global evolution of elec-
tronic payment and financial technologies during his role as head of the telecommunications business unit at Citi Cards and head of e-business at JPMorgan Chase. Now he spends time managing his family-owned VC fund Vedas group, a seed and early-stage fund for start-ups based in the US, incubating entrepreneurs, advising SMEs and guiding the e-payment sector. His investments are broad-based through notable being firms MoviePass, which brings subscription model to content based consumption of entertainment in theatres, Dropthought, a next gen-
New York-based Sridhar Chityala, founder of venture capital firms Vedas Group and Elevate Innovation Partners. Source: static1.squarespace.com
eration data analytics outfit or Imergy, an alternative and cost-effective energy storage platform using redox flow battery technology. His interest in India stems from evolution of mobile banking, payment wallets and government encouragement of concepts such as payments banks. (Agencies)
Insects found in Swami Ramdev's Patanjali noodles in Haryana Ludhiana, Dec 7: Baba Ramdev's Patanjali Noodles lands itself in trouble within weeks after the launch. According to a news reports, a few bugs were found in its packets in Jind, Haryana. The bugs were spotted inside the sealed pack by a man purchased from Swadeshi store in Narwana, according to a report. The shopkeeper has admitted that the packet was purchased from his outlet. The man has decided to file litigation against Baba Ramdev's Patanjali. After the launch itself Patanjali had come under the scanner of government where FSSAIsaid that Ramdev did not get approval for Patanjali Noodles. Ramdev re-
sponded that he never received any notice from FSSAI. Apparently, FSSAI had given approval for Patanjali's pasta brand. "We have licence for Pasta in central category from FSSAI. As per FSSAI, noodles come under the 'pasta' category. FSSAI has given us licence for relabeling in the pasta category," Patanjali said in a statement. Ramdev had launched Patanjali noodles just after Nestle's Maggi got banned from markets. (Agencies)
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