New Pension Scheme Disastrous as Number of workless households rises!
RBS set to cut pension benefitsBBC News - Aug 25, 2009 RBS closed its final-salary scheme to new members in 2006, and like many other businesses has been looking at its provision for existing members. ... RBS to cap payouts for staff pensions Citywire.co.uk RBS scales back staff pensions Newsday Final-salary pensions disappearBBC News - - 15 hours ago And the partly nationalised bank RBS wants to severely limit the growth of future pension entitlements for current members of its final-salary scheme. ... CM promises scribes of pension scheme in next budgetMangalorean.com - 15 hours ago BANGALORE, AUGUST 26, 2009: Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa said the government will introduce a pension scheme for journalists in the State budget ... IBOA condemns bank proposalsIrish Times - 3 hours ago The bank also plans to close its defined benefit pension scheme to new members from November 1st. Under this scheme retiring employees receive a set ... Costain set to close pension schemeContract Journal - - 2 hours ago In its interim results for the half-year to 30 June 2009, Costain said: "As part of our plan to manage the pension obligations and reduce volatility, ... Govt decides to release final installment of pay arrearsTimes of India - Aug 25, 2009 PTI 25 August 2009, 07:05pm IST NEW DELHI: Ahead of the festival season, the government on Tuesday decided to release the second and last installment of ... Central staff to get final instalment of pay arrears Hindu Business Line New pension-cum-savings scheme by year end: PFRDAEconomic Times - Aug 24, 2009 24 Aug 2009, 1725 hrs IST, PTI NEW DELHI: A new kind of pension-cum-savings scheme is on the anvil which would provide a safety net as well as liquidity to ... PFRDA working on corpus mgmt scheme for corporates Business Standard PFRDA norms for companies soon Economic Times Pension regulator scouts for advisors Business Standard Additional Costs due to Expanded Coverage of the Urban Social ...Linex Legal (subscription) (subscription) - 8 hours ago Source: Mayer Brown - From July 2009, certain "Non-Shanghai Employees" must be enrolled in the Shanghai Urban Scheme. Such a change will bring additional ... What's happening in Pensions - July 2009Linex Legal (subscription) - Aug 25, 2009 The issues covered include: • "the principles underlying the selection of discount rates used to value pension scheme liabilities; • whether prudent ... Wednesday Newspaper Review - Irish Business News and International ...FinFacts Ireland - 12 hours ago Ulster Bank also intends to close the company's defined benefit scheme, in which employees who retire receive a set percentage of their final salary, to new ... |
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4 May 2009 ... New Pension Scheme (NPS) 2009 to all citizensHere u will get information related pension plans,pension calculator,pension plan, pension fund ...
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The New Pension scheme has brought a lot of cheers on the faces of many working professional all over the country today.
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1 post - 1 authorPension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has announced New Pension Scheme on 29th April 2009. NPS investment has been categorised into ...
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The government has decided to pay the second installment of the Sixth Pay Commission arrears! How Much and waht to do with the Money! You have to spend the sum and Pump the capital into the Greedy Money machine to lose Cosumet and Individual; sovereignity. Or the Govt. would divert it into Mutual Funds!
"As in the case of the first installment of the arrears, government servants would be permitted to deposit their arrears in their GPF (general provident fund) accounts," an internal finance ministry memorandum said.
The first installment of 40 per cent was paid last fiscal.
The finance ministry has not given any deadline for the payment of the second tranche, but sources said it would probably be paid around Diwali.
According to official estimates, the arrears will cost the government Rs 29,373 crore.
There are about 3.8 million central government pensioners (excluding armed forces) as estimated by the All India Central Government Pensioners Association (AICGPA).
The revised pension scheme was implemented with retrospective effect from Jan 1, 2006.
The biggest threat to the Indian economy is drought that will bring down growth to 6.2 percent this fiscal, says the research arm of global consultancy Moody's.
"GDP growth in 2009 will be mildly slower than in 2008, followed by a notable acceleration in the subsequent three years. India's GDP growth for fiscal 2009-2010 is forecast to slow to 6.2 percent," Moody's Economy.com said in a statement Wednesday.
The scheme, called tier II account, may be introduced by the end of this calendar year, a top official of Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) said.
Jadhav has reportedly threatened the employees to hand over the airlines to the Board of Industrial Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) if the employees refuse a cut in performance-linked incentives.
On August 20 the management had announced that it would cut the performance-linked incentives of the employees by 30 to 50 per cent.
Angry over the delay in payment of their salaries, over 20,000 members of Air India employees’ unions went on a three-day hunger strike starting from Tuesday.
The talks that started on Tuesday evening continued till Wednesday morning ended without any solution, sources said.
In this pension saving account, customers can withdraw almost the entire amount, though a small part might be retained with the fund manager, as directed by the interim pension regulator, the official said.
The pension amount withdrawn would be subjected to tax as it is under exempt-exempt mode like the Tier I account.
Under exempt-exempt, the amount is exempted from tax when deposited and also when it accrues interest, but tax is levied at the time of withdrawing the amount.
After public sector banks, BSNL, Air India and Bharat Electronics Ltd, workers of the steel industry, ports and docks and Bhel are toying with the agitation option. While steel workers are taking a strike ballot to decide on the future course of action, Bhel workers have planned a day’s strike on September 14 and the Indian Ports and Docks Federations are also threatening a stir.
Of the 220 PSUs, 70 are sick while the rest are trying to work out wage settlements. Barring the coal sector, negotiations are deadlocked in other undertakings even 32 months after the old agreement ended in 2006. “The government is adopting a wage restraint policy. This is a major reason for the stalemate in wage negotiations,” CPM polit bureau member and CITU leader M K Pandhe said on Tuesday. He said the delay in wage settlements coupled with increase in prices of essential items was increasing discontent among the workers.
Executives and non-executives in central PSUs are eligible for wage revision with effect from January 1, 2007. The last revision was done in 1997. The trade unions are now insisting on a five-year tenure of wage agreement instead of 10 years with full fitment benefit.
Mr Pandhe claimed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had “verbally” given permission for a five-year wage settlement period for PSU workers in 2008, but the government directive is for 10 years. “We want a 30% increase in wages for five years for the workers. The government has granted 30% increment for executives for 10 years,” he said. The workers’ demands are not new. A GoM in 2000 was in favour of a status quo on the five-year wage settlement period for workers employed with public sector undertakings, autonomous bodies and departmental organisations.
The workers also want that the rate of increment should be a percentage of the basic salary along with proportionate rise in fringe benefits. BSNL, whose over 10,000 employees went on strike last week, was demanding wage revision for more than two lakh non-executive employees. It was also protesting against any disinvestment, contractorisation and outsourcing in the PSU.
Earlier this month, employees of public sector banks across the country struck work for two days demanding wage hike, among other issues.
The government, it seems, is fast-tracking its disinvestment program.
But more importantly, it hopes to change how it uses the funds it gets and wants to make sure that it can use the money to plug the widest fiscal deficit in 16 years.
The Finance Ministry is stepping on the gas pedal to sell its stake in big PSUs.
After Oil India, India's largest power company, NTPC is on the disinvestment radar and REC, the nodal company for funding power projects in rural areas has also been cherry picked for stake sale.
NDTV learnt from sources that 4.75 per cent of government stake will be offloaded in NTPC, while in REC, the government's share will come down by 5 per cent.
Over and above this, REC will also be allowed to issue 15 per cent additional shares to boost its equity capital.
Besides, the Finance Ministry is expecting both these proposals to get cabinet clearance in the next 30 to 45 days. In fact from the NTPC disinvestment alone, the Finance Ministry is hopeful of raking in over Rs 10,000 crore.
This is not all; there are six more companies in the disinvestment pipeline.
Companies, which will be actively considered by the Finance Minister for a 10 per cent stake sale, once NTPC and REC are okayed.
Significantly, sources have also clarified, there will be no exclusive QIP for the any company in which the government plans to sell stake.
In the meanwhile, the Finance Ministry has worked out a formula for using the disinvestment money to lessen its expenditure budget—the real reason why selling stake has become so important for the government.
According to the formula worked out, the disinvestment proceeds would be split between fund managers and infra spending and would be entirely used for infra spending.
There is also a policy decision that National Investment Fund (NIF) will not be dismantled and it will continue to be under the Consolidated Fund of India.
Well, now is for the Cabinet to decide the future of these crucial policy proposals, once Pranab Mukherjee has made up his mind.
http://profit.ndtv.com/2009/08/25205036/Govt-speeds-up-disinvestment-p.html
Investors upbeat on govt’s plan for disinvestment
Just see Indian Express:
Foreign and domestic institutional investors have told the government that the disinvestment programme will sail through smoothly and there will be enough appetite for good quality government stock, officials said.
The government has discussed the disinvestment issue with the heads of global and local financial community last Wednesday. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had called the meeting to assess the country’s investment climate. The 2009 Economic Survey has suggested that the government can raise Rs 25,000 crore annually through disinvestment.
Officials familiar with the discussions said the market feedback on disinvestment is positive, even though there are concerns regarding fiscal deficit and the country’s rating. The Budget 2009-10 projects the fiscal deficit to touch 6.8% of the GDP by March-end, as the government raised borrowing target to Rs 4.51 lakh crore to spur demand.
The authority has decided to work out a separate guideline for management of funds of corporate and entities employees, following request by large employers like the Indian Banks’ Association and the State Bank of India. The country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has approached the pension regulator for the management of the retirement money of its employees.
Similarly, IBA has shown interest in joining the New Pension System for banks’ new recruits. Moreover, some self-help groups and one or two PSUs have also approached PFRDA for the management of their corpus. “Discussions with them are on but no concrete decision s have been taken so far,” the official added. The New Pension System (NPS) was implemented for those government employees who joined service on or after January 1 2004. On May 1 this year, it was extended to all citizens.
There are six fund managers for all citizens’ scheme-IDFC Mutual Fund, Kotak Mahindra, SBI, UTI Asset Management, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance and Reliance MF-to manage the corpus of customers.
Besides, there are 21 Points of Presence (PoPs) of NPS, which include, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Axis Bank and Union Bank of India. PoPs are contact and collection points for customers wanting to be part of NPS. However, PFRDA is unhappy with the way the New Pension System activities have been carried out so far by the PoPs and would meet them on August 26 to ask them to get their act right.
Hike in pension to benefit 12 lakh jawans: PM
"We have accepted the recommendations of the committee constituted to examine the issue of pension of ex-servicemen. This will lead to increased pension for about 12 lakh retired jawans and JCOs," Singh said in his address after unfurling the national flag at the ramparts of Red Fort here on the occasion of 63rd Independence Day.
"We are proud of our brave soldiers. It is our duty to ensure the ex-servicemen are able to lead a life of comfort," he added.
Meeting a long-pending demand, the government had last month announced in the General Budget that it accepted the recommendations of Committee headed by Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar to substantially increase the pension of retired Army men.
The revised pension was implemented beginning July this year and it was an attempt to bring it as nearer to the 'One Rank-One Pension' demand of armed forces as possible.
The decision to increase the pension for defence personnel would cost the exchequer over Rs 2,100 crore annually.
The scheme, called tier II account, may be introduced by the end of this calendar year, a top official of Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) said.
"We are working on a pension saving account under New Pension System (NPS) and is likely to be operationalised by the end of this year," the official said.
The essential feature of this saving account would be liquidity. Customers needing money in emergency situations would be able to withdraw their deposited sum.
In this pension saving account, customers can withdraw almost the entire amount, though a small part might be retained with the fund manager, as directed by the interim pension regulator, the official said.
The pension amount withdrawn would be subjected to tax as it is under exempt-exempt mode like the Tier I account.
Under exempt-exempt, the amount is exempted from tax when deposited and also when it accrues interest, but tax is levied at the time of withdrawing the amount.
"Investment patterns and other guidelines would be the same as applied to Tier I account, which was operationalised from May 1," the official added.
However, the customers who wants to open the Tier II account should essentially have a Tier I account.
"Those who wants to open the Tier II account must also have Tier 1 account. Both the account should run separately," the official added.
Under the present structure of NPS, a customer can only withdraw 20 per cent of the money as a lump sum before he or she attains 60 years of age. On attaining 60 years, the customers can withdraw 60 per cent as lump sum.
Besides the pension-cum-saving scheme, PFRDA is working on a separate fund management guideline for corporates, a move that will allow them to enter into agreements with fund managers for managing the pension fund of their employees.
NPS was implemented for government employees who joined service on or after 1 January 2004. On May 1, it was extended to all citizens.
There are six fund managers for all citizens' scheme-IDFC Mutual Fund, Kotak Mahindra, SBI, UTI Asset Management, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance and Reliance MF-to manage the corpus of customers.
Besides, there are 21 Points of Presence (PoPs) of NPS, which include, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Axis Bank and Union Bank of India.
PoPs are contact and collection points for customers wanting to be part of NPS.
Meanwhile,Indian pension fund managers may have recently got the nod to dabble extensively in volatile stocks, but global pension funds from the
US public pension funds such as California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), California State Teacher's Retirement System (CalSTRS) and European pension funds such as Norway's Government Pension Fund (Global), Denmark's LD Pensions, Netherlands' ABP Funds, all combined, have exposure to over 300 different companies listed in Indian bourses, apart from investments in real estate.
The New Pension Scheme (NPS), launched by the government, was extended to all citizens of the country from May 1, 2009. Under the scheme, 50 per cent of the funds is allowed for investment in the stock markets.
"The total number of subscribers in the New Pension System as on June 30, 2009 was 5,40,244," Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.
He said there were two main tax related issues pertaining to NPS contributions and the Finance Bill, 2009, has given these a consideration.
The benefit under Section 80 CCD of the Income-Tax Act, 1961 was restricted to the employees of the Central Government and other employers (i.e. the salaried class) and was not available to other individuals (like self-employed).
"The Finance Bill, 2009 has proposed to extend the benefit of Section 80 CCD of the Income-Tax Act, 1961 to all individuals," he said.
Further, he said the accumulated pension wealth was subject to tax at the time of withdrawal and the bill proposes to exempt from tax all withdrawals if such amount is used for purchasing an annuity plan in the year of exit.
The lack of awareness about the New Pension System (NPS) has resulted in only 1,109 subscribers applying for it by
The Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority (PFRDA) rolled out the NPS for all citizens from May 1.
"Initially, when NPS for the private sector was launched, we expected it to grow at a slow pace but it grew at a much lesser pace than expected," ICICI Prudential Pension Fund Management Director-on-Board, Tarun Chugh, told reporters here.
ICICI Prudential Pension Fund Management, which has 49 branches, collected 218 forms, the highest among all 22 POPs.
He added that the lack of tax-benefits for NPS is one of the major reasons for it not picking up.
"At the time of retirement one can withdraw 33 per cent of the contribution and the rest 67 per cent is used for annuity, which is taxed. There should not be any tax at the time of withdrawal," Chugh said.
UTI Asset Management Company Chief Marketing Officer Jaydeep Bhattacharaya, said: "Pension is a push-based product. Lack of adequate provisions to push NPS makes its penetration low."
"Eighty seven per cent of India's workforce does not have a pension plan. There is a need to make them aware about the pension plans.
"As the cost structure of NPS is higher than mutual fund products, it (NPS) needs to find a way to reduce the cost structure," Bhattacharaya added.
Citing no tax benefits on NPS as the main reasons for a low number of people joining the system, an official from another pension fund manager said: "People should feel the necessity to join NPS, which can be generated by giving them adequate tax incentives."
The biggest threat to the Indian economy is drought that will bring down growth to 6.2 percent this fiscal, says the research arm of global consultancy Moody's.
"GDP growth in 2009 will be mildly slower than in 2008, followed by a notable acceleration in the subsequent three years. India's GDP growth for fiscal 2009-2010 is forecast to slow to 6.2 percent," Moody's Economy.com said in a statement Wednesday.
"Having survived the global recession, which has turned out to be only a mild drag on India's economic performance, the emerging powerhouse is now facing a new threat," Sherman Chan, economist with Moody's Economy.com said Wednesday.
"As a number of regions have already declared their drought status, the quantity and quality of crops will certainly decline this year, significantly hurting the agricultural sector," Chan said.
"The drought is clearly taking the steam out of India's growth momentum, and another emerging concern is food price inflation. Unlike general commodities, food prices in India have not retreated despite weaker global demand."
According to Moody's, as agricultural output accounts for less than a fifth of India's GDP, the drought may have only a limited impact on the overall recovery. However, as two-third of the population depended on farm income, it could have widespread ramifications.
"In an attempt to support farmers, policymakers set price floors for certain agricultural products, which has essentially blocked the disinflationary effect from easing demand. To maintain a steady level of income for farmers, policymakers will likely hike food prices."
According to Chan, once households scale back consumption, service sectors will also begin to feel the squeeze due to deficient monsoon.
"Moreover, with much lower output this year and a strong government mandate to ensure adequate domestic supply, farm exports are likely to fall dramatically, extending the monsoon pain to other sectors such as trade and transport," she added.
"This will contribute to stronger inflation both domestically and in the global marketplace, as India is one of the world's largest agricultural exporters, especially for rice."
On the positive side, Moody's said that as the US and major European economies gradually come out of recession, export growth may return to double-digit territory as early as next year.
Hindustan times reports:
On a day of high drama, which saw a third judge come out in support of declaration of assets within four days, Chief Justice of India (CJI) K.G. Balakrishnan adopted a conciliatory tone, saying efforts were on to reach a consensus on the issue.
The chain reaction — triggered by Karnataka High Court Judge D.V. Shylendra Kumar’s newspaper article on Friday advocating declaration of assets by judges — reached Chennai on Monday, with a Madras High Court judge offering to make his wealth details public.
Justice K. Chandru’s offer in Chennai on Monday came two days after Punjab and Haryana High Court Judge K. Kannan put his family’s asset details in public domain.
In Delhi, former CJI J.S. Verma, who in 1997 was the first judge to push for declaration of assets mandatory, disapproved of Justice Balakrishnan’s stand on the issue.
“I only wish that the present CJI cuts short this unsavoury debate and makes a declaration himself. All this unhealthy talk going against the judiciary which is not correct will stop,” Justice Verma told CNN-IBN.
Justice Verma said he was upset with the arguments being forwarded for not declaring assets.
“Most of the judges have no hesitation in declaring their assets in public. Many judges of the Supreme Court and high courts have talked to me personally,” he said.
CJI Balakrishnan, who had criticised Justice Kumar on Sunday for making his views public by calling him publicity crazy, adopted a conciliatory approach on Monday.
He said the remarks of a single judge cannot “cause embarrassment to the judiciary”.
“I said every high court judge has got freedom to declare assets, we have no problem. We don’t give any advice to HC judges on this matter. But as regards judges, I made some general comments and I think I got that right,” the CJI said.
He said the SC judges were yet to reach a consensus on the issue of assets declaration.
The issue also resonated in the court on Monday, with a spat between the CJI and senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who in January wrote to 600 judges seeking voluntary disclosure of their wealth.
During a hearing, the CJI admonished Bhushan, saying: “You are a senior counsel. And you are required to behave properly. Last time also you misbehaved...”
The CJI’s was uspet over Bhushan’s statement that “judges are not supreme and they are also accountable to the country’s public.”
BP awards deals to IBM, TCS, Accenture, Infosys, Wipro
Published on Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 21:25 , Updated at Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 21:46
Source : CNBC-TV18
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Top Indian IT firms TCS, Wipro, and Infosys and global majors Accenture and IBM have landed a mega five-year outsourcing deal from the oil and gas major BP. Earlier in the day, BP said the deal was part of its vendor consolidation strategy, where in it has reduced the number of vendors from 40 to just five. "The work covers IT application, development, and management." The process, it said, took over 12 months. "We had called for tenders worth USD 2 billion and have awarded deals worth USD 1.5 billion, saving USD 500 million."
(Read: TCS bags multi-million dollar BP deal) Here is a verbatim transcript of the exclusive interview with S Gopalakrishnan and Suresh Vaswani on CNBC-TV18. Also see the accompanying video. Q: Can you take us through the details as far as this deal is concerned because we understand that all of you have existing relationships with BP but what will this actually mean for a company like yours? Gopalakrishnan: It means that we survived the vendor consolidation. It means that we can bid for work that is coming our way. It is difficult to estimate the size of the pie at this point because it just means that we are part of the consolidation. They have reduced the number of suppliers to them from about 40 to 5. So that’s a positive thing. Q: So which really means if I can understand from what you’re saying that you’ve entered or you have cleared round one and you yet have to bid for that USD 1.5 billion pie? Gopalakrishnan: There is assured business but that’s what we have today – future growth etc depends on some competitive bidding probably. Q: Could you explain to us the nature of your engagement? We believe you’re also doing some work BPO already. Is there a scope in this deal that perhaps you’re share of the pie could be ramped up if you’re not willing to give us numbers? Vaswani: What Wipro is going to do is we will provide IT application development and maintenance services for BP’s fuel value chain and corporate businesses globally and really to help BP in its transformational journey in the consolidation that Krish spoke about. We already have an existing relationship with BP but that was localized in the global functions which we will continue to do and this really extends our relationship into BP’s fuel value chain which is new, which we were not doing earlier. Q: Do you expect as I said the scope of this engagement to increase going forward? Vaswani: The scope of the engagement is certainly going to be larger than what it was earlier. Like I said we were primarily engaged on the corporate functions and now we have extended our relationship to cover BP’s fuel value chain as well in terms of application development and maintenance support. Q: If I can put that same question to you as well. Suresh was just talking about what gets actually added on as far as Wipro is concerned from a BP point of view. If you can take us through what part of the BP value chain Infosys now also gets added on? Gopalakrishnan: We are into exploration and production. We are into some of the SAP work. We are into some of the BPO work we are doing for BP and what comes beyond this I am not able to talk about because the size is not at this point specified. We know that this is a positive thing but what the size is going to be I am not able to comment on. Q: You were talking to us earlier about a certain portion of this actually being assured business in that sense. Could you share with us details of the assured portion? Gopalakrishnan: Our current business with BP is assured. That is the thing that is assured. But we cannot give you the number. Q: A word on what you think is your assessment of the operating environment at this point? Do you think the deal pipeline is looking better or worse, or is it status quo? Gopalakrishnan: There is optimism. The environment is better. But I would still want to be cautious because nobody predicted this downturn; nobody actually predicted that the upturn will be so soon. In that sense, our ability to forecast is limited and unless we have data from two quarters, I would be cautious to say that we are out of the woods. Vaswani: I would broadly echo what Mr. Gopalakrishnan is saying. Certainly we are cautiously optimistic about the environment and that is what we had communicated during our earnings press conference as well. We continue to remain cautiously optimistic. We have been working extremely closely with our customers and a value-added partner in terms of creating opportunities, creating demand and not just managing demand. That is what sort of gives us the cautious optimism in terms of our prospects, in terms of our funnel and in terms of what we can deliver to our customers. So, we are cautiously confident about the prospects of Wipro going forward. Q: Since you are both cautiously optimistic, which verticals would you be more optimistic about as far as deal flows are concerned at this point? Gopalakrishnan: Banking and financial services segment has recovered better or faster, retail seems to be better off, manufacturing is one vertical that has not actually yet recovered. Q: In terms of margins, where are you actually seeing the margin and pricing picture? Gopalakrishnan: Our pricing will remain flat. Q: A question on pricing and margins for you as well? Vaswani: The economic environment is seeing modest recovery taking place in certain segments. But pricing pressure is expected to continue. But broadly, I think in terms of customers and in terms of Wipro, we have taken a strong partnership mindset to most of the pricing issue. So, we do believe that from an operating margin perspective we would see a flattish sort of an operating margin structure. If anything, again I’d be cautiously optimistic but it would have a positive bias. So, yes, there is pricing pressure. But there is a lot of productivity drive that most companies, particularly Wipro, are driving towards strong productivity. So, net-net, we do believe that we should be able to sustain operating margins and even be cautiously optimistic in terms of a positive bias on operating margins. |
S Gopalakrishnan, CEO, 
Suresh Vaswani, Executive Director and Joint CEO, 
Hasit Kaji, Vice President, HENNAI: Indian pension fund managers may have recently got the nod to dabble extensively in volatile stocks, but global pension funds from the
US public pension funds such as California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), California State Teacher's Retirement System (CalSTRS) and European pension funds such as Norway's Government Pension Fund (Global), Denmark's LD Pensions, Netherlands' ABP Funds, all combined, have exposure to over 300 different companies listed in Indian bourses, apart from investments in real estate.
CalPERS, the largest public pension fund in the US, has just reported the most severe (23%) decline in assets to $181 billion in fiscal 2009 but yet it believes India is one of the "most promising" investment destinations globally. CalPERS has over $320 million exposure in listed Indian stocks plus $100 million in Indian real estate via India Realty Fund and India Real Estate Fund.
“We believe markets, including India, are perhaps the most promising investment sector in the coming years. Accordingly, our global equity, private equity, and real estate sectors are looking to allocate increasing share of their portfolios-up to 50%, to such countries. India is promising, especially compared with socalled developed US and Europe," a CalPERS spokesperson said. The fund administers retirement benefits for 1.6 million active and retired state, public school, and local public agency employees and their families.
Norway's Government Pension Fund (Global), where the surplus wealth produced by Norwegian petroleum income is deposited, has exposure to around 215 Indian listed companies. According to an official of Norges Bank Investment Management, which is responsible for investing the international assets of the fund, emerging markets such as India have been 'responsible for improvement in the returns' clocked by international listed stocks portfolio.
Netherlands' ABP and Denmark's LD Pensions have exposure to Indian stocks worth over $500 million as per latest figures. These funds serve the needs of nearly 3 million European pensioners.
Your advice on pension arrears in The Hindu dated February 16 is useful. As pointed out by you, for recent retirees, the spread over may not be of much use. But for aged pensioners whose other income is low, the spread over benefit will be useful as liability will stand reduced. I am not, therefore, sure whether I will be able to have the working done in Form 10A before the due date for filing return. Could you suggest to the government some steps for persons like me living in a village to enable me to get relief even at the time of tax deduction at source?
For getting spread over relief under Sec. 89, it is not necessary that the return should be filed before the normal due date.
A belated return for assessment year 2009-10, which is the relevant assessment year for arrears received during the financial year 2008-09, can be filed till March 31, 2011, though one need not wait for such a long time. There is, therefore, no need for apprehension of a belated return losing the spread over benefit under Sec. 89, even if not filed before the end of July 2009.
The easier course could have been for the banks to assist the pensioners so that the relief is taken into consideration at the time of disbursement itself.
If the banks organise an assistance cell even by outsourcing, they will be rendering a useful service for a class of persons, who would normally be depositing the receipts with them. This can be done at least for arrears to be paid during the present financial year.
S. RAJARATNAM
Pension watchdog set to trim bookkeeping charges for NPS
NEW DELHI: The pension regulator will soon lower record-keeping charges for the New Pension System (NPS) which accounts for nearly three-fourths
The Pension Fund Regulatory & Development Authority (PFRDA) will achieve this by two ways: appointing more record-keeping agencies so that competition will reduce costs and mobilising more customers that will achieve economy of scale, PFRDA chairman D Swarup told ET.
NPS, which is compulsory for those who joined central government service on or after January 1, 2004, was opened up to all citizens in May this year. Since then, over 1,100 have signed up for the scheme.
PFRDA was set up using the government’s executive powers and now functions more or less like an arm of the government rather than as a full-fledged statutory regulator. That is because the PFRDA Bill, giving the regulator the necessary discretion, is yet to be passed by Parliament.
The bill, which is likely to be tabled in Parliament in the winter session, empowers the regulator to appoint more than one record-keeping agency. The current agency, National Securities Depository Ltd, that charges Rs 350 a year for maintaining the records of a customer, was chosen because the government has a say in it by way of nominated directors and holdings through public financial institutions. The regulator will bring in more record keepers after it gets full statutory powers.
Secondly, the NPS is approaching the threshold for lowering the charges based on customer subscription that is built into the pension fund regulator’s contract with NSDL. With just two state governments joining the system, the total number of beneficiaries have crossed six lakh, which also includes some central government employees and other citizens.
“Twenty-one states have already agreed to join the scheme and have notified. With their contribution coming in, higher volume discounts will further lower the cost of record-keeping,” said Mr Swarup.
The regulator has also asked the government to foot the record-keeping charges of ordinary citizens signing up for the scheme, which will make it more attractive for them. The government already pays the same for central government employees who are members of NPS.
Also, the government pays 1.16% of the salary of a member of the Employee Provident Fund Organisation’s pension scheme.
No-frills pension plan for low-wage workers
EW DELHI: The government is mulling a pension scheme that will cover over 28 crore low-income workers such as rickshaw pullers, fishermen,
The Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority (PFRDA) is working on a low-cost pension scheme for such low-income workers, which will be ready in about four months, chairman D Swarup told ET.
The regulator is now designing the scheme in such a way that the cost of keeping the records of beneficiaries would be much lower than the Rs 350 a year that the National Securities Depositories (NSDL) charges for maintaining accounts of the recently expanded New Pension System (NPS).
While NPS employs banks to keep accounts for its beneficiaries, the new scheme will shift that task to co-operative societies.
However, while lauding the intention behind the scheme, pension experts said the real challenge would be in bringing in the targeted populace under the pension umbrella.
Motivating low-income workers to join the scheme and providing a decent retirement income from their very small savings after decades of inflation are major challenges, said Gautam Bhardwaj, co-founder of Invest India Micro Pension Services that launched the first pension product for low-income workers in India. State governments like Rajasthan make co-contribution to the beneficiaries in the ‘Micro Pension’ scheme.
“For a worker earning daily wages, the immediate priority would be to feed his or her children rather than saving for retirement. Convincing low income workers to defer consumption for thirty years and make them continue to save year-after-year may be a tough task,” said Mr Bhardwaj.
It is also tough is to balance the incentives for the poor to join the scheme with the commercial incentives of the entities delivering the scheme, he said.
PFRDA plans to launch a national campaign to make low income workers aware of the need for retirement saving. The regulator now has a fund of Rs 10 crore for this and expects more from the government.
According to the authority, the ultimate pension wealth from the scheme would depend on the investment option chosen by the subscriber, the amount of contribution and market returns.
Number of workless households rises
The Government was accused of "deserting" millions of people after official figures showed the number of households in the UK with no one over the age of 16 working has increased by 240,000 in the past year to 3.3 million.
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Number of workless households rises The Office for National Statistics said the number of working-age people in workless households jumped by 500,000 to 4.8 million in the year to June.
The workless household rate increased by 1.1% to 16.9%, the highest since 1999 and the biggest year-on-year increase since Labour came to power in 1997. The number of children in workless households was 1.9 million in June, up by 170,000 from a year ago.
The Conservatives said Labour had deserted millions stuck in a "cycle of worklessness".
Shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May said the figures painted a bleak picture, adding: "It is scandalous that we have millions of adults unable to break out of the vicious cycle of worklessness. To add insult to injury, this is a problem that has been lying dormant for a number of years that Labour chose to ignore.
"It is also extremely distressing that nearly two million children now live in workless households, shattering Gordon Brown's pledge to halve child poverty by 2010. Unless Labour takes some decisive action, we risk losing a generation of young people."
Liberal Democrat shadow work and pensions secretary Steve Webb said: "Labour's claims to have tackled worklessness have been exposed as fantasy. The alarming jump in the number of households where no-one is working is a sure sign that the recession will have a devastating impact on hundreds of thousands of families.
"The Government needs to change the way jobcentres work so that people get help far earlier. No one should be sat on benefits for a year after losing their job."
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "This concerning rise in the number of children in workless households shows the devastating impact that rising unemployment can have on families. With unemployment continuing to rise sharply, it is vital that the Government continues to do more to get people back to work.
"The Future Jobs Fund must continue to be properly resourced and expanded so that more people - including older job seekers - can benefit from it."
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