Out of a total population of 127 crore there were slightly over 3.46 crore effective tax payers during 2012-13 financial year, the government told Parliament.

In a written reply to Lok Sabha on Friday, Minister of State for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman said while there were 3,46,04,064 individual assessees, the figure under the companies category stood at 5,90,288 in the latest data compiled for 2012-13. The data for 2013-14 fiscal is yet to be compiled, she added.

There was a total outstanding (provisional) of `3,28,519 crore under the Income Tax category and of `3,21,055 crore under the corporate tax category till June 2014.

Replying to a separate question, the minister said a case of unauthorised issue of refunds of income tax using login ID and password of an retired officer was detected in 2012 which has since been referred to CBI for investigation.

“A new password management policy has been implemented wherein changing/resetting of password is mandatory after an interval of 30 days, the user ID of an employee will be automatically disabled on his date of superannuation and immediate investigation and stern action against officers found to be guilty” among others are some of the measures implemented to counter the problem, she said.

Sick PSUs revival

The government has identified three sick PSUs to be merged with better performing state-run industries, the House was informed.

Sitaraman said that Praga Tools Ltd, Bharat Heavy Plates Vessels Ltd and Bharat Refractories Ltd will be either merged or taken over by Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) and Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT).

Steps to tame prices

To another question on steps to contain food inflation, Sitharaman said, “The Government is committed to ensuring price stability and is closely monitoring the situation and taking measures on an ongoing basis to bring down inflation.”

The government recently recommended delisting of fruits and vegetables from the purview of Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Acts of the states and fixing a minimum export price on onion and potato to ensure domestic supplies, she said, adding the government has also suspended futures trading of rice, urad and tur.

As per the latest WPI data, inflation in 31 essential commodities moderated to 6.05 per cent in June as against 9.27 per cent in the same month last year.  “While there has been a moderation in inflation... it  is still elevated having implications in terms of real income and consumption levels for the poor,” she said. (New Indian Express)