In Parliament: Rail fares

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Tuesday promised to bring down passenger fares following increase in revenues and said his ministry would consider carving out a new division in Salem from the Palghat division of Southern Railways if Tamil Nadu and Kerala agreed.

"The one rupee reduction in fares was a signal to people. As the revenue of railways increase, we will bring down passenger fares further," Prasad said winding up discussions on supplementary demands for grants for Railways in the Rajya Sabha.

SSI units
The government on Tuesday said it had initiated action against three units for manufacturing items reserved for small sector without fulfilling the export obligation.

"The government has initiated action in three such cases (where big companies are manufacturing items reserved for the SSI sector) in accordance with the provisions of Industries (Development and Regulation Act) 1951," Minister for Small Scale Industries Mahabir Prasad told the Lok Sabha in a written reply to a question.

Fire fighting measures
As many as 42 factories out of 547 units inspected in the capital were found to be having inadequate fire-fighting equipment.

The inspection was carried out by Delhi government in 2005 and the management of the 42 factories were issued show-cause or improvement notices for rectification of the violations, Minister of State for Home S Regupathy told the Lok Sabha in reply to a question.

He said legal action was taken against those managements that failed to comply with the notices.

Sops for pvt airlines
The government is considering a proposal to give sops to airlines for linking metropolitan cities and small towns, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Praful Patel informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

"At present, scheduled air services are available to/from 72 destinations," Patel said in a written reply.

Goods, services tax
The government is preparing a roadmap for a goods and services tax to replace excise duty and service tax by April 2010, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Replying to supplementaries during question hour, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said a roadmap for the proposed legislation was being prepared and hoped it would be implemented by 2010.

Capital inflows
The government on Tuesday said the capital flows to India increased to Rs 71,512 during April-Dec of financial year 2005-06, from Rs 66,192 crore attracted during 2004-05.

On the back of sustained economic growth, positive investment climate and robust capital market in India, during the first nine months of the 2005-06, ADRs and GDRs were able to garner Rs 8,766 crore as against Rs 2,754 crore mopped up during the previous fiscal, Minister of State for Finance Pawan Kumar Bansal said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

Tax payers units
The government has decided to establish Large Tax Payers Units (LTUs) initially in the five cities of the country which would act as a single window facilitation centre for all large entities paying corporate tax/income tax and service tax, Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam said in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

Vat benefits
In reply to another query, Chidambaram said the introduction of value added tax system, to replace sales tax, resulted in 13.8 per cent increase in revenue for the states implementing it during 2005-06.

The minister said barring Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Pondicherry, the rest of the states had implemented Vat.