Monday, December 9, 2024
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Misinformed conclusions

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Editor,
Kindly refer to the report “Outrage over decision to dismantle the 123-year-old St Anthony’s building,” appearing on page three of your esteemed newspaper of Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
In this regard, as a former General Secretary and subsequent president of the Don Bosco Past Pupils’ Association, Shillong, in past years, I wish to state that the report describing the St Anthony High School building “as a 123-year- old building” is not only factually wrong but also without basis as the building is still shy of a century by more than twenty years.
Many will perhaps be interested to know that the construction work on this building started in the aftermath years of World War II, in about 1948 or so, and was completed towards 1951 end. In 1952 St Anthony’s High School began functioning from this new building.
A word of caution to all of us who are wont to arrive at conclusions, on especially matters of consequence, without any proper research or verification, to shun such tendency lest we risk the possibility of being included in the ranks of those who “…rush in where angels fear to tread” !!!
Yours etc.,
Billy P Domes,
Shillong – 6

Violation of food safety norms

Editor,
It is observed that most of the locally produced daily consumable products like bread, biscuits, snacks and even milk, to mention a few, are being sold without abiding with the provisions of the “Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011” which clearly specifies that in addition to general labelling of pre-packaged foods, every package of food, inter alia, shall carry the information on date of manufacture or packing. Any manufacturer of products which has a short shelf-life of less than three months is mandated that the date, month and year in which the commodity is manufactured or prepared or pre-packed shall be mentioned on the label. The “Food Safety And Standards (Labelling And Display) Regulations, 2020”, inter alia, provides that the day, month and year using the DD/MM/YY format for products with a short shelf life of up to 3 months shall be declared in a particular manner.
It appears that local manufacturers have been given a free hand to sell such products with a short shelf life without following the laid down law. The lack of consumer awareness is palpable given the fact that there has hardly been any resistance on the part of the consumers. It is also bewildering that such situations have persistently been allowed to continue under the watchful eyes of the concerned authorities. The Food Safety Officers have failed to take any action(s) on this front.
Hope this jolts the concerned authorities into taking swift and appropriate action.
Yours etc.,
D L Wankhar,
Via email

PAN upgrade

Editor,
The 10-digit alpha-numeric Permanent Account Number (PAN) issued by the Income Tax Department is set to have a slew of upgrades – enhancement of the QR code feature for new and old cards, a completely online application process and a merger of all existing identification numbers to make PAN as the common identifier for businesses. Additionally, a “PAN data vault system” will be created for all entities using PAN data, for data protection and cybersecurity purposes
The Union Cabinet approved the PAN 2.0 Project to make PAN the “single source of truth and data consistency”. With PAN already linked to Aadhaar, it is expected to become a strong source of identification and information for authorities.
Existing PAN cards will continue to be valid under PAN 2.0, as per the FAQs issued by the Finance Ministry. Existing PAN holders need not mandatorily apply for the new card but could upgrade their PAN free of cost. The number or PAN would remain the same. The allotment or update or correction of PAN will be done free of cost and e-PAN will be sent to the registered email ID. For a physical PAN card, the applicant has to make a request along with a fee of Rs 50 (domestic). For delivery of cards outside India, Rs 15 plus postal charges will be charged, the FAQs said essentially PAN acts as an identifier for the person with the Income Tax department and remains the same once allotted. Further, TAN stands for Tax Deduction and Collection Account Number, a 10-digit alpha-numeric number issued by the I-T Department. TAN has to be obtained by people responsible for deducting or collecting tax at source. It is compulsory to quote TAN in TDS/TCS returns, any TDS/TCS payment challan and TDS/TCS certificates.
The PAN 2.0 Project, with a financial implication of Rs 1,435 crore was approved by the Union Cabinet. The PAN 2.0 Project aims to streamline services and enhance security for taxpayers with a unified, paperless platform. and it is a long-awaited upgrade for a card that has been in use for decades. The number was introduced in 1972 as an optional number but was made mandatory for all Income Tax payers in 1976. Currently, PAN-related services are being offered to people through three different portals — the e-filing portal, UTIITSL portal and Protean e-Gov portal. Through the PAN 2.0 project, all PAN and TAN related services will be hosted on a single unified portal of the income tax department. Apart from integration of the platform, the Income Tax department will also switch to completely paperless processes for applying for a PAN card.
Under the new project, a centralised mechanism for resolving the issue of duplicates would minimise the instances of one person holding more than one PAN, which will improve tax administration in the country. While the new PAN card will have a QR code, the Income Tax department has clarified that the older PAN cards will continue to be valid which is a great relief for people. However, they will have an option to apply for a new card with a QR code now. The QR code feature, which began in 2017-18, helps validate the PAN. This feature will continue with some enhancements. The project also aims to set up a “mandatory PAN data vault system” for all entities using PAN data, including financial institutions, government agencies, and central and state government departments through an online validation service. “The PAN related information is used by many entities such as banks, insurance companies etc., Hence those (entities) who take details of PAN will have to keep PAN data safely, mandatorily through the data vault system.” Of the 78 crore PAN cards issued 98 percent belong to individuals.
This is a good step taken by the Government and should be appreciated and if there are difficulties in implementing the same those should be resolved too.
Yours etc.,
Yash Pal Ralhan
Via email

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