CA Pankit Shah

Why banks are rejecting loan requests ? With covid-19 hitting incomes and jobs, lenders have become more circumspect about the repayment capacity of borrowers and tightened norms . Those working in sectors directly affected by covid, new borrowers and those having low credit scores are the worst hit . Ahmedabad-based Mohit Jain, 29, applied for a home loan in February at a housing finance company, but his application was rejected recently. The loan processing got delayed when Mr. Jain, an Business exhibition Stall Designor , changed his job in March and the country went into a lockdown. In May, he reopened the process, but a few days later his loan application was rejected. “They denied the loan saying the norms had changed," said Mr. Jain , who was not given a specific reason. Pankaj Upadhyay, 54, who lives in Nadiad, a small town Gujarat, applied for a personal loan with the same public sector bank with which he has had a salary account f

Food Safety Compliance System (FoSCoS) is an enhanced version of Food Licensing and Registration System (FLRS) which was launched in 2012 for issuance of pan-India FSSAI Licenses and Registration.      It had evolved incrementally and organically with changing regulatory needs. The technology on which it was built was outdated with technical support no longer available. Over years users complained of slow speed of FLRS and software experts resisted new changes on FLRS thus impeding any further improvement, expansion and innovation in the licensing system. Thus the migration from FLRS to FoSCoS was imperative. FoSCoS is built using latest technology with a vision to have modern on stop pan-India IT platform for food safety

Artificial Fruit Ripening Ethylene used in different forms is approved by FSSAI to ripen the fruits, up to a limited concentration of 100 parts per million. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has issued a directive to food safety commissioners in all States and UTs to undertake effective surveillance and enforcement activities for preventing the use of banned substances such as calcium carbide or acetylene gas for artificial ripening of fruits. They are also advised to do similar exercise for vegetables to check the level of pesticides. According to FSSAI, despite prohibition on sale of artificially ripened fruits using calcium carbide, the prevalence of such ripened fruits in the market is a serious cause of concern which needs to be tackled effectively. A focused and sustained awareness campaign at Mandi level may be conducted for the FBOs. The awareness campaign in this regard may also be conducted through media for proper education of the FBOs.