Business

As many as 170 complaints have been filed before the standing committee and screening committee by consumers against businesses for not passing on benefits of tax rate reduction since the roll out of Goods and Services Tax (GST) from July 1.

The benchmark BSE Sensex rose 100.48 points, or 0.29 per cent, to 34,070.12 in early trade.

During the Question Hour in Rajya Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said there were countries which had applied a uniform tax rate on all commodities but these were nations where the entire population was above the poverty line.

Some believe 2017 is best forgotten as the twin blows of demonetisation and mangled Goods and Services Tax (GST) ripped the economy for the most part.

The bank, however, did not change the marginal cost of funds-based lending rate (MCLR) which would have brought down the cost for all borrowers.

A haircut signifies accepting a lower than market value for the asset for a resolution of the Non-Performing Asset.

Power, IT, auto and infrastructure stocks witnessed robust buying, while the beginning of January 2018 series of futures and options also added to the momentum.

At the start, the 30-share BSE index rose 77.49 points, or 0.22 per cent, at 33,833.77. The Nifty too went up by 23.40 points, or 0.22 per cent, to 10,463.70.

After its Executive Board discussed the Financial System Stability Assessment (FSSA) of India, the IMF in a report said India's key banks appear resilient, but the system is subject to considerable vulnerabilities.

Others on the gainers' list were ITC, Maruti Suzuki, HDFC, Infosysand ONGC. However, Reliance Industries (RIL), TCS, HUL and SBI suffered losses in their market capitalisation (m-cap) for the week ended Friday.

According to the report, the expenditure incurred on these infrastructure projects till September 2017 is Rs 6,79,801.38 crore, which is 38.86 per cent of the anticipated cost of the projects.

The benchmark Sensex finished over 205 points higher at 33,456 while the broader NSE Nifty closed above the 10,300-mark.

The two-member NCLT bench headed by Chairman Justice M M Kumar has directed the government to submit the 10 names by December 20, the next date of hearing.

Bitcoin -- which came into being in 2009 as a bit of encrypted software and has no central bank backing it -- has risen from a 2017 low of $752 in mid-January, and surged dramatically in the past month.

The finance minister exhorted India Inc to make investments in infrastructure sector to build a stronger India.

The central bank has tweaked the fee levels to widen the network of merchant establishments which will accept the card payments and also to incentivise banks to invest more into cash-less or less-cash payment systems.