Banks skip dividend

New Delhi, Nov. 20: Saddled with mounting bad loans, as many as 16 PSU banks, including Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank, skipped paying dividends in 2015-16, leading to a three-fold decline in government receipts to Rs 1,444.6 crore. Only six state-owned banks, including the SBI, declared dividend, though at a lower rate, for 2015-16. Under the existing guidelines, profit-making banks have to pay a minimum dividend of 20 per cent of their equity, or 20 per cent of their post-tax profit, whichever is higher.

Cairn tax case

New Delhi, Nov. 20: India has won a six-week extension for replying to the $5.6-billion claim sought by British oil explorer Cairn Energy Plc for being slapped with a Rs 29,047-crore retrospective tax demand.

Start-up funds

New Delhi, Nov. 20: Market regulator Sebi plans to reduce minimum angel fund investments for venture capital undertakings to Rs 25 lakh from Rs 50 lakh to provide an impetus to the early-stage start-up ecosystem. It may also allow the angel funds to make overseas investments up to 25 per cent of their investible corpus.

Airports

Chennai, Nov. 20: The Centre plans to double the number of airports over the next two to three years to serve the largely-untapped domestic aviation industry, which has seen a rise in passengers, aviation minister Jayant Sinha said.

Ferrying steel

New Delhi, Nov. 20: India's top steel companies, including SAIL, Tata Steel and JSW, can easily shift about 40 per cent of their inter-state goods movement to coastal shipping, a government report said.