As per the survey conducted by HR consulting firm Right Step Consulting, the salary hikes for India would decline to 11.54% in 2012 from 11.89% in 2011

New Delhi: Employees across corporate India are expected to get a lower average salary hike in 2012 compared to last year as companies are grappling with sluggish economic activities, says a survey.

As per the survey conducted by HR consulting firm Right Step Consulting, the salary hikes for India would decline to 11.54% in 2012 from 11.89% in 2011, reports PTI.

“After having grown at the rate of 8.4% over the last two years the Indian economy slowed down considerably in the year ended March 2012 and the lower than expected growth in economy at only 6.9% is reflecting in the Indian corporate sector's lower outlook for compensation hikes for its employees,” Right Step Consulting director Vishal Bhargava said.

The drop in salary hikes is expected across both services and manufacturing sectors. While manufacturing sector is expecting a salary hike of 11.58% as against 11.91% in 2011, the service space is expecting a salary increase of 11.49% compared to 11.87% last year.

“Drop in salary hikes in manufacturing sector was expected given that sector's estimated growth rate in 2011-12 at 3.9% is a drop of almost 50% as compared to 7.6% in the previous year,” Mr Bhargava said.

Among the sector, prominent core sectors such as power, steel, mining and construction are all expecting a lower salary hike.

“Besides, the drop in expected salary hikes in services is on account of sharp drop in telecom and drops in sectors like retail, IT software, BFSI and travel/hospitality,” he added.

The survey, conducted among 2,326 Indian companies across sectors, said decline in salary hikes are expected across both foreign MNCs and Indian companies.

“Drop in foreign MNCs is marginally higher from 12.17% in 2011 to 11.73% in 2012 a decline of 44 basis points as compared to Indian companies which are expecting a drop from 11.71% to 11.41% a drop of 30 basis points,” Mr Bhargava said.

Reflecting economic uncertainties and slow down in the home markets of foreign MNCs which is an additional concern for their India operations.

“The module permits internet-based direct participation of gilt account holders in primary auctions of government securities or G-Secs

Mumbai: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said it implemented its web-based online bidding in primary auctions of government securities, reports PTI.

The module on web-based negotiated dealing system (NDS) auction will allow internet-based direct participation of gilt account holders.

“The module permits internet-based direct participation of gilt account holders (GAHs) in primary auctions of government securities (G-Secs)”, the RBI said in a notification.

'Gilt account' is used by the RBI to refer to a constituent account maintained by a custodian bank for maintenance and servicing of dematerialised government securities owned by a retail customer.

Since February 2012, the apex bank has introduced an additional facility of web-based NDS auction module to facilitate online bidding by constituents’ subsidiary general ledger clients (CSGL clients) or GAHs in primary auctions of G-Secs.

However, it said, the access is subject to controls by respective primary member (PM) as it would continue to be responsible for settlement of CSGL bids or trades in respect of its GAHs, as is presently the case.

The web-based auction module is an additional facility and all regulations related to current CSGL account holders or PMs and client bidding system would remain, the RBI said in the notification.

“All actions on web-based NDS auction application would also be governed by the extant rules, regulations, notifications and/or any other instructions issued by it from time to time,” it informed.

The investment in the bond -- Postal Life Insurance Government of India Special Floating Rate Security 2022 -- by the banks and insurance companies will not be reckoned as an eligible investment in government bonds for their statutory requirements, the Finance Ministry said in a statement

New Delhi: The government announced issue of Special Floating Rate Bond worth Rs7,000 crore.

 “The Special Bonds are being issued at par to Department of Post as of 30 March 2012, as part conversion of the frozen corpus of Post Office Life Insurance Fund (POLIF) and Rural Post Life Insurance Fund (RPOLIF),” the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

The investment in the bond -- Postal Life Insurance Government of India Special Floating Rate Security 2022 -- by the banks and insurance companies will not be reckoned as an eligible investment in government bonds for their statutory requirements, it added.

However, such investment by the insurance companies will be eligible to be reckoned as investment under 'other Approved Bonds'.

Further, the investment by the Provident Funds, Gratuity Funds, Superannuation Funds, in the bonds will be treated as an eligible investment, the ministry said.