Economy News ( English version)

"The acreage of kharif crops is unlikely to meet last year’s level. The erratic rainfall will have an impact on the final yield and harvest. The heavy rains we are seeing in some states are also not good for harvest. Overall, we could expect a slower fall in food inflation, " said Aditi Nayar, chief economist, ICRA.

Sitharaman said pending cases need to be resolved expeditiously and that the department could run a campaign for this on the lines of public sector banks. Despite Covid-19 related challenges,she said direct tax collections had sustained the momentum and use of technology had closed the gap between direct tax and indirect tax collections.

Forex market interventions during surges in capital flows to contain the INR volatility lead to an increase in money supply or M3, which however is found to be neither inflationary nor elicit a policy rate response by the RBI, finds a research paper published by the Reserve Bank of India .

"The momentum of the last fiscal continues in this fiscal with net direct tax collection of Rs 7.04 lakh crore so far, which is a growth of 23 per cent over the same period last fiscal," Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Nitin Gupta said.

As per the survey (QES), which is fourth in series of the revamped survey released last year, manufacturing employed 12.25 million workers followed by 6.9 million in the education sector, 3.8 million in IT/BPOs and 3.3 million in the health sector. These four sectors constituted 83% of the total estimated workers in the nine sectors.