PIB Notes

Economy :

North East Venture Fund

  • North East Venture Fund(NEVF) has disbursed over Rs.18 crore to 12 start-ups till February,2020, as per the data provided in the Parliament.
  • NEVF was launched in 2017 by the North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Limited(NEDFi) in association with the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region(M-DoNER).
  • Aim:To contribute to the entrepreneurship development of the NER and achieve attractive risk-adjusted returns through long term capital appreciation by way of investments in privately negotiated equity related investments.
  • It focuses on startups in five sectors namely a) food processing b) healthcare c) tourism d) aggregation of services and e) IT and IT-enabled services.
  • It is a close ended fund with capital commitment of Rs 100 crore.Each investment will be limited to a minimum of Rs.25 lakh and a maximum of Rs.10 crores with long term investment horizon of 4-5 years.

MSME Sambandh And Udyam Sakhi Portal

  • Union Minister for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises(MSME) has urged all the female entrepreneurs to take maximum benefits from various MSME portals like  Sambandh and Udyam Sakhi Portal.
  • MSME Sambandh: This portal aims to help in monitoring the implementation of public procurement policy for micro and small enterprises.
  • Udyam Sakhi: It aims to encourage women entrepreneurs by creating business models revolving around low-cost products and services to resolve social inequities.

Other Important Portals for MSME Sector

  • MSME Samadhan: It empowers micro and small entrepreneurs across the country to directly register their cases relating to delayed payments.
  • MSME Sampark: It is a digital platform wherein jobseekers (passed out trainees/students of MSME Technology Centres) and recruiters get connected.
  • Udyami Mitra Portal: It was launched by Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) to improve accessibility of credit and handholding services to MSMEs.

Committee To Review Fiscal Consolidation Roadmap Of The General Government

  • The Chairman of the Fifteenth Finance Commission, has constituted a Committee to review the  fiscal consolidation roadmap of the general government
  • The Committee shall make recommendations on the definition of deficit and debt for the Central government, overall states, the General Government and public sector enterprises by considering all explicit and measurable liabilities of the sovereign and by bringing in consistency between the definition of debt (stock) and deficit (flow).
  • The Committee shall also lay down the principles for arriving at the debt of the general government debt and consolidated public sector with appropriate netting to avoid double-counting.
  • The Committee shall define contingent liabilities, provide quantifiable measures of such liabilities, wherever possible, and specify conditions under which “contingent” liabilities become “explicit” liabilities of the public sector.
  • Based on the above, the Committee shall recommend a debt and fiscal consolidation roadmap for FY21-FY25 for the Central Government, overall States and General Government and attempt building up scenarios for public sector enterprises.

Enhanced Access And Service Excellence (EASE) 3.0

On 26th February, 2020, Union Finance Ministry launched the Ease (Enhanced Access and Service Excellence) 3.0, the new reform agenda for tech-enabled banking.

EASE 3.0 agenda aims at providing smart, tech-enabled public sector banking for aspiring India.

  • It seeks to enhance ease of banking in all customer experiences, using technology, fintech, alternate data and analytics.
  • It will include facilities like Palm Banking for end-to-end digital delivery of financial service, Banking on Go via EASE banking outlets, digitalised branch experience, tech-enabled agriculture lending among others.
  • It emphasizes on the use of digital, analytics & AI, FinTech partnerships across customer service, convenient banking, end-to-end digitalised processes for loan sourcing and processing, analytics-driven risk management.

US Now India’s Top Trading Partner

  • According to the 2018-19 data from the Commerce Ministry, the United States has become India’s top trading partner surpassing China.
  • China was India's top trading partner since 2013-14 till 2017-18.
  • The bilateral trade between the US and India amounted to USD 87.95 billion as compared to USD 87.07 billion with China.
  • America is one of the few countries with which India has a trade surplus. While dealing with the US, India had a surplus of 16.85 billion in the year 2018-19 alone.
  • Currently, the top five trading partners of India are - US, China, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong.

India Now World’s 5th Largest Economy

  • India has emerged as the fifth-largest world economy in 2019  with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.94 trillion, overtaking the UK and France, as per a report by US-based think tank World Population Review.
  • The size of the UK economy is $2.83 trillion and that of France is $2.71 trillion.
  • In terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, India's GDP (PPP) is USD 10.51 trillion, exceeding that of Japan and Germany. Due to India's high population, India's GDP per capita is USD 2,170 (for comparison, the US is USD 62,794).

SPICe+ Web Form

  • As part of the Government of India’s Ease of Doing Business (EODB) initiatives, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs notified a new Web Form christened ‘SPICe+’ (pronounced ‘SPICe Plus’) replacing the existing SPICe form.
  • SPICe+ would be an integrated Web Form and would have two parts viz.: Part A-for Name reservation for new companies and Part B offering a bouquet of services.
  • It would offer 10 services by 3 Central Government Ministries & Departments (Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Labour & Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance) and One State Government (Maharashtra).
  • It aims to save as many procedures, time and cost for starting a Business in India and would be applicable for all new company incorporations.
  • The new web form would facilitate onscreen filing and real-time data validation for the seamless incorporation of companies.

SEBI Panel For Social Stock Exchanges

  • The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has constituted a working group to suggest norms on Social Stock Exchanges (SSE) under the chairmanship of Ishaat Hussain, Director, SBI Foundation with 14 members.
  • The so-called social stock exchanges in the country will allow companies operating in sectors such as health, environment and transportation to raise risk capital.
  • In the Budget, the Centre had asked SEBI to initiate steps towards creating a social stock exchange.

Digital Payment Abhiyan Launched

Nasscom’s Data Security Council of India(DSCI) has collaborated with Union Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) and Google India to launch ‘Digital Payment Abhiyan’.

About Digital Payment Abhiyan

  • The campaign aims at increasing awareness about cashless payment, educate end-users on the benefits of making digital payments, online financial security and urge them to adopt security and safety best practices.
  • It will be a pan-India campaign which will be crafted in seven languages — Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali and Marathi.
  • It will engage with users and make them aware of the dos and don’ts for different payment channels including UPI, wallets cards as well as netbanking and mobile banking

RBI Expands Scope Of Bharat Bill Payment System

The Reserve Bank of India has expanded the scope of the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) by adding other categories of recurring payments through the portal.

Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS)

  • BBPS is an interoperable platform that enables a customer to pay bills such as telephone, water, gas, direct-to-home (DTH) and electricity at a single location—electronic or physical.
  • With the expansion of the scope of the payment facility, other recurring payments such as school fees, municipal taxes, insurance premiums can also be paid via BBPS.
  • BBPS payments can be made using cash, cheques as well as through digital methods such as internet banking, debit, credit card, among others.
  • Bill aggregators and banks function as operating units and carry out these payment transactions for customers.

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