My Dear Members,
As I
sit to write this, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has announced that
the city recorded 3,680 mm of rain, the second-highest total since 1958 (3,760
mm)! The downpour in the penultimate week of September was the heaviest spell
this season, causing severe disruption of life.
This
coincided with a ‘stormy’ monsoon session of Parliament which also set a new
mark of productivity. In one of the shortest sessions in history due to
Covid-19, Parliament approved 25 bills in ten days, although it was ‘stormy’
because of protests by opposition parties. Parliament clocked 167% productivity
in the session – the highest in its history! Among the key bills passed were
the Labour Code Bills, the Foreign Contribution (Regulation)
Amendment Bill, 2020 (FCRA), and The Banking Regulation (Amendment)
Bill.
The
three Labour Code Bills are crucial second-generation reforms to improve the
ease of doing business and make the Indian labour market competitive to realise
the ‘Make in India’ dream. The Bills are designed to protect the interests of
the workers and ensure compliance. Its success will need to be assessed in the
context of the Indian economy’s recovery from the impact of the current
pandemic.
As
for the FCRA Bill, 2020, NGOs are a vital and important element of civil
society. Many of them implement and monitor the Government’s welfare policies,
operating at the grassroots level where the official apparatus is often
non-existent. No doubt the NGOs need to be transparent about their finances,
sources of funding, etc. The provisions such as details of spends on
administration, restricting inter-NGO money transfers and funding to be routed
through a specified bank branch suggest too much micro-managing and would affect
the social objective which is the biggest requirement of the hour.
Coming
to co-operative banks, so far they have been under the dual control of
co-operative societies as well as the RBI. Now, to protect the interests of
depositors, the Lok Sabha passed an amendment to the Banking Regulation Act to
bring co-operative banks under the supervision of the RBI. The Bill seeks to
strengthen co-operative banks by increasing their professionalism, enabling
access to capital, improving governance and ensuring sound banking. The RBI
will also be able undertake a scheme of amalgamation or reconstruction of a
co-operative bank without placing it under moratorium. This would go a long way
in bringing much needed stability of the co-operatives under single window monitoring.
The BCAS
has made various representations individually and also jointly with other
sister organisations to address difficulties faced in compliances and for
extension of due dates. The same are reported elsewhere in this Journal.
Normally, we favour adhering to the original time lines of the compliances and
generally abstain from representations for extension of due dates. But the
current situation is an extraordinary one and the BCAS realised the
difficulties faced by small and medium-sized practitioners in adapting to the
requirements. We expect a favourable response from the Government. However, may
I appeal to the members to complete the compliances to the extent possible,
without waiting for any extensions.
In
September, our Taxation Committee released its first publication on ‘Income
Tax Settlement Commission – A Practical Guide’. It is an excellent law and
practice guide on a specialised subject with FAQs. Similarly, the Corporate and
Commercial Laws Committee released its twin handbook publications on ‘All
about Startups and all about MSMEs’ together with their E-versions. The
publications will be of tremendous use for professionals and also for the
business units in that category for practical aspects with FAQs. I am thankful
to all the authors and contributors. Both the publications are available for
sale with the BCAS.
October
is the month of Navaratri. I wish all of you a Happy Navaratri and good wishes
for Dussehra.
Best Regards,
Suhas
Paranjpe
President
