BENGALURU: The representatives of the financial sector and capital markets have urged the finance ministry to increase the security transaction tax (STT) on options contracts in their pre-budget meeting.
The stakeholders have expressed their concern over speculation in the options trading for which prevention is needed. ‘There should be a separate STT for the cash and derivative. The commodity option should be used for MSP.
Alternative Investment Fund (AIF)-3 category should also get pass-through status,” one of the stakeholders who were present in the meeting said. In addition, the ministry has also been requested to lift the ban on derivatives trading on several commodities including chana, wheat, paddy, soybean etc.
Experts present in the pre-budget included SS Mundra, Chairman, BSE; Siddharth Pai, co-chair, regulatory affairs committee Indian private equity and venture capital association. NS Kannan, managing director and CEO, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, among others.
This apart, representatives from agriculture and agro-processing industries also met finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday. They have made a request to keep farm inputs like fertilizers and pesticides etc out of the GST ambit, as farmers can’t claim the input tax credits on them. Further, the agriculture industry representatives have urged to allocate separate funds for the promotion of organic farming in the pre-budget meeting.