Consumer Rights » India

National Emergency Helpline Number – 108

ashish — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 06:25:50 +0000

A few states in India have had an emergency helpline number for some time now – the number being 108 (followed by the states of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand; and being pursued by the states of Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and MP). This is a toll-free number styled on the US style 911 toll-free emergency helpline. The idea of such a number is that this will be the medical emergency number which can be used for contacting in the case of a medical emergency – whether this be an accident, heart attack, stroke, criminal attack that results in injuries, etc. In all such cases, the chances of saving life are much higher if medical help reaches early, in fact, there is the concept of the golden hour when emergency medical help acts as a life saver.

After negotiations for almost a year, telecom minister A Raja has indicated in a letter to health minister Anbumani
Ramadoss last week that 108 is being finalized as the national toll-free trauma care number. “Once a caller dials 108, a 24-hour call centre will receive the information, locate an ambulance closest to the emergency spot through GPRS technology and dispatch it within the golden hour,” a health ministry official said.
Ramadoss said the Centre has already sanctioned Rs 732 crore for the National Emergency and Trauma Care Programme, which was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on December 13.

Ludhiana proposing to construct model vegetable market

ashish — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 04:06:05 +0000

The agriculture sector in the country faces several drawbacks. Wastage due to spoilage, large number of middlemen, bad condition of vegetable mandis, etc lead to an overall bad impression of the agriculture sector in the country. For the end-users, there is no easy to get re-assurance that they are getting good quality foods and vegetables; that their local vendor is not fleecing them (even a Re 1 markup over a sustained period of time can be a pretty large figure in the overall family’s budget, and especially for poor families). What is required for a lot more investment and improvement in the agricultural sector. Large retailers with their incorporation of direct contacts with farmers, providing tips and techniques for better cultivation, more cold storage for reducing spoilage is one way. Another measure that needs to be taken is the improvement of traditional vegetable markets in the country, with better information flow, more facilities, essentially measures that will help improve the lot of farmers as well as end-consumers. It seems like a measure is being taken in Ludhiana in Punjab in this regard, which is a great move:

After industry now it’s the turn of agriculture to record major advances in this ‘Manchester of India’. The construction of Punjab’s first ‘model vegetable market’ in the city spread over 55 acres has reached the final stages and will be completed at an investment of about Rs 70 crore. The first ‘model market’ will have 5 cold stores with 50 mt capacity.
To purify vegetables and fruits two machines with the latest technology will be installed in the market and 50 electronic boards displaying rates of major vegetable markets in the country will also be set up. “A whopping sum of Rs 70 crore would be invested on the modernisation of the Ludhiana vegetable market alone, while in rest of the state we will invest Rs 260 crore on revamping 124 markets.

This is a great move, and should help everybody. Agriculture is still the primary livelihood for a sizable section of the population of this country, as well as being a big part of the budget for poor families.

Getting access to sensitive information filed by corporates with SEBI

ashish — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 07:00:31 +0000

EDIFAR is the Electronic Data Information Filing And Retrieval system. This is an automated system for filing, retrieval and dissemination of time sensitive corporate information which till now were being filed physically by the listed companies with the stock exchanges in India. By centralising the information through on-line filing, EDIFAR’s primary objective is to centralise the information and accelerate its dissemination and by doing so enhance the transparency and efficiency for the benefit of all the stakeholders in the securities market.
The EDIFAR has been launched by SEBI in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the EDIFAR site can be accessed through a hyper link in SEBI’s web site www.sebi.gov.in. The site is maintained by NIC. EDIFAR is being implemented in a phased manner. As of date, all the listed companies are required to file disclosure statements and other information with the stock exchanges where they are listed. The stock exchanges disseminate this information through trading terminals, their website etc.
In the first phase, a select list of such disclosure statements

1. viz. financial statements comprising of balance sheet, profit and loss account and full version of annual report; half yearly financial statements including cash flow statements and quarterly
2. financial statements
3. Corporate governance reports
4. Shareholding pattern statement
5. Action taken against any company by any regulatory agency

will be filed electronically by about 200 companies included in the BSE Sensex, S&P CNX Nifty and BSE-200 indices. For period ending September 2002, December 2002, March 2003, June 2003 and September 2003, 2345 more companies are included thus enabling 2545 companies to electronically file the documents. These companies will also continue to file this information in the physical form with the stock exchanges. Gradually the physical filling will be discontinued and both he number of companies as well as the disclosure statements will be expanded to cover all the actively traded companies for all the disclosure statements. All physical filing would then be discontinued. The procedure for filing and retrieval of information is described in the Operations Manual available on the site.

Appeal to the Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals)

ashish — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:43:13 +0000

Supposing you have been in touch with the Income Tax department for some dispute, and you are not satisfied with the conduct of the assessing officer with respect to your taxes, you have the ability to appeal against such orders. Suppose your taxable income has been charged more than you think it should be, or a specific section is being used against you which you don’t think should be, or a deduction has been disallowed and you would like to appeal against the order, you can do so.
Within 30 days of the receipt of the order of the assessing officer, download the Form 35, attach the facts of the case and the reason for your appeal and give it to the Commissioner Appeals.

Income tax calculator for income in India

ashish — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:40:14 +0000

There are many income tax calculators that are available, but given that the income tax rules change every year, with various exemptions, rules, etc, and with the slabs changing every time, the need is for an updated tax calendar, so my attempt is to show the best tax calculators in India. Here goes:

1. Tax calculator on Sify

2. A download software

3. Taxoffice

4. Etaxesindia

5. Nithya’s tax calculator

In addition, here are the individual tax rates for the current assessment year

Want to know status of passport application in India ?

ashish — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 11:37:08 +0000

If you have applied for a passport and want to know current status of the passport, there is a way to find out the status online. If you have applied for a passport to the passport offices in any of these cities, Ahemadabad, Bangalore, Bareilly, Bhopal, Bhubhaneshwar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Cochin, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Goa, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jallandhar, Jammu, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Malapuram, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Pune, Ranchi, Srinagar, Surat, Thane, Thiruchirapalli, Trivandrum, Vishakapatnam, then refer to the following URL for finding the current status of passport

http://164.100.17.25/passmain.php?city=dlh

Income tax forms in India

ashish — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 10:58:28 +0000

July 31 is the last date for filing of individual income tax in India. This is a pretty strict deadline, and not necessary that it would be extended, so it would be a good move for individual tax payers to actually make sure that all their income tax for the previous financial year is paid and the returns filed by this date. There is always some confusion over the forms to be used for filing of income tax, so here is the government of India website for Income tax. Forms (Saral forms – ITR1, ITR2, ITR3, etc) required to file the Income Tax are available at this link.

If you want to pay your income tax online and hold an account with UTI Bank, click here
If you hold accounts with any of HDFC Bank, IDBI Bank, SBI or Union Bank of India, then click here

There are a number of post offices where you can file your income tax returns, the full list is given here

If you want to do e-filing of your income tax, then this is the location where to file

If you have any queries on PAN or eFiling, call this number 0124-2438000

If you want to apply for PAN, you can apply to either NDSL or UTI

Banks not allowed to use force to recover dues: Lucknow High Court

ashish — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:15:23 +0000

How many times have we heard that a bank used force to get back its unpaid / defaulted loan from a customer. We would have felt that maybe a bank was justified in re-possessing a loan if the customer did not pay back. However, a recent Lucknow High Court judgment laid out the law in this regard. A bank cannot use force, or use any means such as muscle men to get their money back. This is an excellent order, protecting the customer from large banks who will use any measure to get their money back, and worthy of being deemed an order to be quoted in favour of customer / consumer rights.
Banks or other financial institutions are supposed to use legal means to get their assets back, and any other measure is a violation of the law. Such cases are civil proceedings, and any direct action is not allowed. Refer this article:

In a significant order, the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court on Thursday ruled that a bank, private or nationalised, cannot use force, hire hooligans or gangsters on contract to recover the loan amount.
Taking note of these facts and the practice of realising the default amount forcibly through musclemen, the Bench observed that the law of the land cannot be given a go-bye and life and movement of property of an individual cannot be put to ransom nor his movement can be restricted against the provisions of law.

Of course, such a judgment will cause a problem problem for banks due to the fact that our legal system is very slow, and banks may be tempted to be much more strict about giving out loans if it is not allowed to take such measures to get back NPA (Non Performing Assets). But maybe this will push banks to be more strict about setting up a customer credit history board, that will give customers benefit if they have a positive credit history.
One hopes that one will see less media news about people having died due to forcible action by credit recovery agents, or about a person’s car being picked up a bank’s recovery agents by force anywhere on the street. I once remember a case where i had a long-standing dispute with a bank over a yearly fee over a credit card, and eventually I got a softly menacing call from a recovery agent. For people who actually owned money, I can just visualize what they would have to face.

Online application for Indian passport

ashish — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 19:13:49 +0000

There are 2 ways to get a passport, either fill in the form and go stand in line after taking a token. There is another way that has been recently introduced, and that is a part online, part standing in line process. What do you need to do ?
Well, if you belong to one of the areas covered by these passport offices, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Kozhikode, Ranchi, Bareilly, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Surat, Bhopal, Goa, Malampuram, Srinagar, Bhubaneshwar, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Thane, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Nagpur, Trichy, Chennai, Jammu, Patna, Trivandrum, Cochin, Kolkata (Calcutta), Pune or Vizag, then you can apply online for registration at the following link
In addition, you can download some of the affidavits required at this link
Most important of all, refer to this checklist whether you are applying for a fresh passport, or going in for a re-issue or renewal, or applying for a name change or adding spouse name, or applying for a child passport.
Instructions for filling in the form online are available at this link
If you want to apply for a passport under the Tatkal scheme, then refer to this link

Once you have entered in all information, the system will generate a PDF file containing the details you need to fill in. You need to print it, and then enter a few additional details. The printed form will also have the date and time of appointment stamped on it. Paste 3 photographs with the specified size onto the form and then go to the passport office at the time of your appointment with the proofs that you need.

If you find that your passport is not coming in time, then you can contact your regional Regional Passport Officer. The page containing contact information is at this link.

For queries such as whether you need to update your passport if changing address, or ECNR stamp, addition of spouse name, baby passports, difference between re-issue and renewal, change of name in case of divorce, etc, refer to the FAQ’s located at this page.

Do not call registry for more Indian banks

ashish — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 18:04:30 +0000

These are some more Do not Call registries for different banks as well as their complaints page / customer policies

CitiBank India Do not call Registry

Citibank India complaint form

ABN Amro Do not call service

ABN Amro complaint form

SBI Bank Complaint form

SBI Bank complaint contact numbers