Governments

High pension recipients can get short-changed in bailouts

Financial, Governments, Personal Finance, Press / By /

Do not transfer large sums of money from your tax free Employee Provident Fund to the Employee Pension Account in the hope of getting a large pension in the future. As per the EPFOs own calculations the deficit was Rs. 15,000 crores as on March 31, 2017. The deficit position for the years ended March 31, 2018 and 2019 has not been released by the government but is likely to be much higher. Even the calculation of the deficit figure has not been made for the last 4 years. A pension fund that has not even calculated its liability is a scary place to invest your hard earned tax free Employee Provident Fund money. Those people depending on government bailout should be aware of the precedents whenever governments have stepped in to protect pensioners – those entitled to larger pensions inevitably get shortchanged in the process”.

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Searchable database for unclaimed shares needed

Financial, Governments, Investments, Press / By /

Check on this link https://bit.ly/3Pf2ffX for the names of any investors who were active in teh stock markets in the 1980s/1990s . The link will provide details if any investor has unclaimed shares or dividends that have been transferred to IEPF. Around 48,000 crores are currently deposited with Investor Education and Protection fund (IEPF). IEPF does not have a functional search facility & investors are left to use private searchable databases.
Once discovered there are long tedious processes to recover the shares/dividends. Whilst action has been initiated by the finance minister to create an integrated portal to make the refund process simpler I make a plea in this article in Business Standard that a transparent searchable database is a must to reduce the mountain of unclaimed assets. comments welcome.

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Beware! Govts do default on pension liabilities

Financial, Governments, Personal Finance, Press / By /

Employees who are taken in by the promise of old pension scheme could do well to learn from Gandhi ji. In 1942, while the II world war raged, the Cripps Commission made a vague promise of granting Dominion Status after the war was over, if Indians would support the war effort. “I refuse to accept a post dated cheque on a failing bank” Gandhi ji responded. Politicians who are making the promise of restoring the “Old pension scheme” know that they will not be around when the time comes to actually pay the pension. They are just looking to save on making the employers contribution to NPS. The demand for the “Old Pension Scheme” explained through a Fable in Harsh’s article in Business Standard

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Make nomination the third route of succession

Governments, Press / By /

Harsh participated in a panel discussion organised by the Department of Economic Affairs & SEBI on June 8 @ Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi. It was part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrating 75 years of independence. FM Nirmala Sitaraman also spoke at the event. All the panelists including Harsh had the privilege of meeting her for a brief interaction before she spoke at the event.
The panel discussion was on “The growth of retails investors and the challenges in being an informed investor” . The article in Business Standard has the gist of the talk by me primarily on the need to change the laws just like the 2015 amendment in the Life Insurance Act to make succession the third route of succession. The Indian Citizens need an easy, quick and economical succession route for their assets to free them from the tyranny of their personal laws or wills both of which involve long, tedious, expensive Tarikh pe Tarikh court process.

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More is less in client communication

Financial, Governments, Press / By /

Regulations and custom dictate a deluge of communications to an investor from advisors, platforms, mutual fund houses/PMS companies. With pre-and post communication coming in for each transaction it is a barrage of communication that overwhelms most investors. They respond by ignoring even the important communications that may be buried deep inside this barrage of communication. To top it most such communication is worded in non understandable legal language. One of the progressive regulators can take a lead to at least attempt much needed simplification and rationalisation exercise in the matter. A good first step would be to allow consumers to actively choose what kind of communication they wish to receive (or not receive) from their service providers. The second step would be to penalise service providers who disregard the active choice made by the consumer. Language and process simplification can follow later. Harsh’s article in Business Standard. Comments welcome.

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Now, make central KYC registry fully operational

Financial, Governments, Press / By /

Ease of doing business rankings enjoys the govt’s attention for obvious reasons. “Ease of living” for citizens does not get the same attention though it can have a high impact on day to day lives of citizens. Many structural reforms have not delivered simply because the last 5% of the work has been dragging for years even though 95% of the hard work has already been done. Electronic toll collection that has not resulted in any significant reduction in pile up before toll booths is a prime example. In the financial sector the Central KYC registry has been in place since 2016 but lack of accountability has ensured that the benefits from this path breaking reform is still awaited while lots of inconvenience is being caused to citizens. Some work has also happened on bank account portability and loan portability without any tangible benefit on the ground. Harsh Roongta’s article in Business Standard.

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Vigilance Awareness Week 2025 (VAW2025)

Vigilance Awareness Week 2025 is being observed from October 27th to November 2nd, 2025, with the theme:

सतर्कता: हमारी साझा जिम्मेदारी (“Vigilance: Our Shared Responsibility”).

All stakeholders are encouraged to participate in the e-pledge initiative by visiting the CVC portal: https://pledge.cvc.nic.in/.