The Centre will make all efforts to bring amendments to the direct taxes code Bill in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament, J.D. Seelam, Minister of State for Finance, said here on Friday.

“We will push for it (amendments) to be taken up in the monsoon session,” Seelam told reporters on the sidelines of an industry event here on Friday.

There is an apprehension that the Monsoon session may go the way of the Budget session where very little legislative business (other than passage of the Budget) got done.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had a few days ago said that work on the likely amendments to the Bill had been completed from his end and that the proposed changes are with the legislative department.

The Monsoon session of Parliament begins on August 5 and is scheduled to end on August 30.

Earlier, in his address at the event on ‘Mobile governance and financial inclusion’, Seelam said the Government was keen to ensure growth with equity and equality.

Later, in a separate technical session, Deepali Pant Joshi, Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India, said that business correspondents would be linchpins to take the financial inclusion agenda forward.

Joshi said the business opportunities in India were huge. At the same time, she also pointed out that the business case for financial inclusion was still not there.

srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in

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