The government has decided to set up five more debt-recovery tribunals and four more debt-recovery appellate tribunals. A bill to make certain amendments in recovery of debts, due to banks and institutions, act to strengthen its provisions, will be introduced in parliament.

Duty on demat debt scrapped

The budget for 1999-2000 has proposed that stamp duty be abolished on transfer of debt instruments in the dematerialised form. This will accelerate the pace of dematerialisation of securities and insulate investors from fake, forged and stolen securities associated with the physical form. The volumes in debt markets are expected to considerably pick up as abolition of the stamp duty will lead to reduction in costs to investors.

NHB Act to be amended National Housing Bank (NHB) Act to be amended to develop primary and secondary market for housing mortgages simplifying the present legal provisions for foreclosure and transfer of property. Changesin tax treatment of the income earned on non-performing assets proposed.

Banks to step up housing finance

Reserve Bank of India to advise banks to lend up to 3 per cent of their incremental deposits for housing finance. Golden Jubilee Rural Housing Finance Scheme to cover 25 per cent more dwelling units at 1.25 lakh during 1999-2000.

Interest sops Law to be amended to enable tax concession to a loanee on interest payment to a co-operative bank on an actual basis rather than accrual basis. Loanees can, therefore, make timely repayment of their interest liability in order to avail of the tax benefit, which is also expected to improve the financial condition of co-operative banks.

Watershed development fund Watershed development fund to be established with Nabard to cover 100 priority districts within 3 years. The Centre will provide necessary matching assistance to Nabard. The Centre will also provide one-time management subsidy and recurring assistance over an initial period of 3 years to allregistered water users associations, linked to incremental water rate collection.

Institutional credit to farm sector up

Institutional credit flow to agriculture up by 20 per cent in 1988-89 to Rs 38,000 crore from Rs 31,698 crore in the previous year. Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF-V) corpus to be raised to Rs 3,500 crore. Repayment period extended from five to seven years with the scope of RIDF to be widened to cover gram panchayats, self-help groups and other eligible organisations for implementing village-level infrastructure projects.

Kisan credit cards to farmers Kisan Credit Card scheme to cover 20 lakh farmers in 1999-2000.

RRBs to be recast

Recast of regional rural banks continues with a fresh recapitalisation allotment of Rs 168 crore for this sector.

Nabard aid for self-help groups

Nabard and Sidbi to ensure coverage of at least 50,000 self-help groups in 1999-2000 under schemes to channel for flow of funds to micro-enterprises.

Subsidies forcold storages

New credit-linked capital subsidy scheme for construction of cold storages and godowns to be introduced. Scheme to be implemented by the ministry of agriculture with the help of Nabard. Additional cold storage capacity of 12 lakh tonne sought to be created with rehabilitation and modernisation of 8 lakh tonne existing units.