Typically if you have booked a flat from a builder, and you are somewhat negligent in making your payments, there are stiff penalties with interest rates of upto 8-12%. The Government is proposing to put a check on these high penalties, and if any real estate developer violates these checks, then they can be penalized. While giving joy to normal people, this has the read estate business up in arms, trying to prevent such a thing from coming to pass. So, what is the plan ?
The government has introduced a clause in the Real Estate Management & Regulation Bill under which penalties have been capped at 1% of the value of a house. Penalties are charged as interest on the defaulted payment. Industry sources say developers charge interest at rates as high as 8-12% in the absence of any regulation.
Developers admit customers have had to pay steep penalties on defaults. “The insertion of the penalty clause in the lease deed is to make sure customers pay installments well in time. In most cases, the whole money is paid without any delay. Thus, there is no need for penalty,” Parsvnath MD Pradeep Jain said.
The real estate regulator would be first set up in Delhi. Other state governments would be free to decide whether to adopt the model, since property is a state subject. “It would be mandatory for Delhi, and other states would subsequently be asked to adopt the model law to regulate real estate in their respective cities. The Maharashtra government is already setting up a real estate regulator,” a senior government official said.

Applying for a passport is one of the most painful things a person can do. A major part of the pain process is the police verification, and it is observed that this is one of the major issues that delays the whole process. In many cases, it is required to follow up with the police force to figure out whether police verification has happened.
Well, maybe this will change in the future; the Bangalore police system is working on a system that will push these police verification requests to the police station on a priority basis and the police have to clear cases either way rather than delaying these:

Passport applications will no longer be delayed due to police verification as the police will now have to clear applications on a ‘first come first serve’ basis.
Once the new system is connected to the main server, which is currently tracking passport applications on a trial basis, the area police have to mandatorily verify and clear applications which come to them first and only then get on with the day’s work. FIFO would help ensure transparency in police verification and speed up the process.
However, applicants have to still wait until the enforcement agency clears some initial hitches. The main obstacle is police station records which are not computerised and not equipped with any systems.

Such things are very useful as this will reduce the effect of touts and other middlemen, as well as the customary bribe either directly or indirectly to the policemen. This will take time to implement as there will be initial reluctance on the part of the police force to use such a system, in addition, there will be many police stations that are not well-connected or computerised. But this is a good way to proceed, atleast for passport applications. The need is to extend this to other states as well, as well as for other functions that are needed to be done by the police force in terms of verifications.

There are 15 banking ombudsman in India as of now, and they are located in different cities - Ahemdabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Gauwhati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi, Patna and Trivandrum.
For address and contact details, refer to this link

Problems regarding banking or credit card ? Bank charging high rates, or delaying services, or any other problem ? Well, India has a banking ombudsmen who can help in resolving your complaints. And when do you go to a banking ombudsmen ? After you have tried to resolve your complaint with the bank, and after one month the bank has either not got back to you or you are not satisfied with the reply.
Refer the entire section on the banking ombudsmen.
Where to file your complaint ? Refer to this link for online complaint filing with the banking ombudsmen.

Which are the complaints for which you go to banking ombudsmen? The Banking Ombudsman can receive and consider any complaint relating to the following deficiency in banking services:

* non-payment or inordinate delay in the payment or collection of cheques, drafts, bills, etc.;
* non-acceptance, without sufficient cause, of small denomination notes tendered for any purpose, and for charging of commission for this service;
* non-acceptance, without sufficient cause, of coins tendered and for charging of commission for this service;
* non-payment or delay in payment of inward remittances ;
* failure to issue or delay in issue, of drafts, pay orders or bankers’ cheques;
* non-adherence to prescribed working hours;
* failure to honour guarantee or letter of credit commitments ;
* failure to provide or delay in providing a banking facility (other than loans and advances) promised in writing by a bank or its direct selling agents;
* delays, non-credit of proceeds to parties’ accounts, non-payment of deposit or non-observance of the Reserve Bank directives, if any, applicable to rate of interest on deposits in any savings, current or other account maintained with a bank ;
* delays in receipt of export proceeds, handling of export bills, collection of bills etc., for exporters provided the said complaints pertain to the bank’s operations in India;
* refusal to open deposit accounts without any valid reason for refusal;
* levying of charges without adequate prior notice to the customer;
* non-adherence by the bank or its subsidiaries to the instructions of Reserve Bank on ATM/debit card operations or credit card operations;
* non-disbursement or delay in disbursement of pension to the extent the grievance can be attributed to the action on the part of the bank concerned, (but not with regard to its employees);
* refusal to accept or delay in accepting payment towards taxes, as required by Reserve Bank/Government;
* refusal to issue or delay in issuing, or failure to service or delay in servicing or redemption of Government securities;
* forced closure of deposit accounts without due notice or without sufficient reason;
* refusal to close or delay in closing the accounts;
* non-adherence to the fair practices code as adopted by the bank; and
* any other matter relating to the violation of the directives issued by the Reserve Bank in relation to banking or other services.

Investments in Mutual Fund in India have grown at a steady pace over the recent few years, and every analyst and financial magazine recommends investments in Mutual Funds as a way to get into equity, especially for those who are not comfortable with direct investments in equity; or are risk-averse to some degree, or don’t have the time to study the equity market or individual stocks.
In the midst of all, this Mutual Fund market faces a steady stream of criticism, related to charging high fees, or releasing a number of new funds on a regular basis so as to be able to take advantage of a higher amortization of marketing fees, or how selling agents will want to sell new Mutual Funds as the commission is more. There is the need for customer protection, and if the Mutual Fund industry does not do its own introspection, there will be higher regulation.
Well, it does not seem like there are many measure being taken in this regard. However, the Mutual Fund industry realizes the need to get more people invested into Mutual Funds, and maybe as more invest, there will emerge the need for more protection. Right now, the industry is geared towards getting more people invested into the market.

The fast growing mutual fund (MF) industry, for some time now, has realised that it should spend more on educating people about the virtues of investing through the fund route. This is so, because fund houses realise that going forward informed investors could become the main growth drivers for MF industry
The report has also proposed that the government could make some budgetary allocations for meeting the cost of investor education and bring the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF), currently with Ministry of Company Affairs, under the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). At present, the funds collected under IEPF is mainly the unclaimed dividend from companies. IEPF goes to the Consolidated Funds of India, a fund managed by the government. The CII report proposed that IEPF should be spent for investor awareness and not go to consolidated funds.

It is a good first step, but a lot more needs to be done. Mutual Funds are also the retirement vehicles for a number of people, and investor education really needs to be a high priority.