Probe in securities scam cases over: Govt

GAIL: The government has sold 135 million shares in Gas Authority of India Ltd in the GDR market with a "green-shoe" option to disinvest another 20 million shares, at a market-driven price of Rs 70 per share, which emerged from a book-building exercise, Patil said. Denying that the shares were sold at an exceptionally low price, he said share prices in the domestic markets reflect very thin trading volumes and is not a reliable indicator of price for such large offering of shares.

REFUND: Over 1.32 lakh refund claims of excess income taxpaid by assesses were pending disposal till June 1999, Minister of state for finance DhananjayaKumar said. he minister attributed the delay in disposing the claims to various factors such as workload, available manpower and time taken for verification of payment challans.

The government, he said, has taken a number of short-term and long-term measures for expeditious disposal of repayment of excess tax paid by assesses by initiating computerisation in the department, starting electronic clearing services, taking a policy initiative to reduce the number of direct refund claims and issuing instructions for time-bound disposal of all pending refunds.

DEFAULTERS: Income-tax of Rs 10 lakh or more was outstanding againt 76 film artistes, producers and directors as on March 31, minister of state for finance V Dhananjaya Kumar informed the Rajya Sabha on Monday. Movable and immovable properties of some of the defaulters has been attached by the Income Tax Department as a result of which Rs 42.20 lakh has been recovered so far, he said.

PORT: The Centre has no plans to privatise theJawaharlal Nehru Port, though private investment has been sought to build new terminals involving huge capital investment, minister of state for surface transport Dr Debendra Pradhan said.

SAVINGS: There is no proposal at present for reducing interest rates ON small saving schemes and Provident Funds, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said.

MNCs: During 1998-99, some multinational companies did not deduct tax at source in respect of part of the salaries paid to their employees abroad for services rendered in India, Kumar said.However, the entire tax amount, including statutory interest thereon, amounting to approximately Rs 640 crore, has been recovered from 103 companies, he said.

BONDS: The Resurgent India bonds floated by the SBI received subscription to the extent of 4.20 billion US dollars of which 4.025 b dollars has been brought into India.