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Government has capped the prices for some essential products related to COVID-19

SEBI has announced the following relaxations on compliances on account of COVID 19
Relaxation from compliance with certain provisions of the SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011 due to the COVID-19 pandemic vide Circular dated 27th March 2020

Further relaxations from compliance with certain provisions of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 (LODR) and the SEBI circular dated January 22, 2020 relating to Standard Operating Procedure due to the CoVID -19 virus pandemic vide circular dated 26th March 2020

Circulars:

https://bombaychamber.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/28.3.2020.pdf

https://bombaychamber.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/28.3.2020-2.pdf

MHA issues advisory to all States/UTs to make adequate arrangements for migrant workers, students etc from outside the States to facilitate Social Distancing for COVID-19

Take immediate steps to provide adequate support, including food and shelter, to migrant agricultural labourers, industrial workers and other unorganized sector workers during the 21-day Nationwide COVID-19 lockdown.

Explore measures by involving various agencies, including NGOs, to provide food and shelter with basic amenities like clean drinking water, sanitation etc

Take steps to ensure that students, working women from other States, etc. are also allowed to continue in their existing accommodation.

States/ UTs need to ensure that hotels, rented accommodations, hostels etc., continue to remain functional and delivery of essential items is streamlined, so that students, working women hostel inmates etc. are allowed to continue in existing facilities, while observing precautions.

DEPwD issues comprehensive disability inclusive guidelines to States/UTs for protection and safety of persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan) in light of COVID-19

Key Points
The Resident Welfare Associations should be sensitized about the need of persons with disabilities so as to allow entry of maid, caregiver and other support providers to their residence after following due sanitizing procedure.

Persons with disabilities should be given access to essential food, water, medicine, and, to the extent possible, such items should be delivered at their residence or place where they have been quarantined.

Persons with disabilities should be given priority in treatment, instead they should be given priority. Special care should be taken in respect of children and women with disabilities.

Employees with blindness and other severe disabilities in both public and private sector should be exempted from essential services work during the period as they can be easily catch infection.

During quarantine, essential support services, personal assistance, and physical and communication accessibility should be ensured e.g. blind persons, persons with intellectual/ mental disability (psychosocial) are dependent on care giver support. Similarly persons with disabilities may seek assistance for rectification of fault in their wheelchair and other assistive devices

The International Labour Organisation has issued a Note on Social protection responses to Covid 19 crisis based on Country responses in Asis & Pacific. The Note also deals with protection of employment and wages and initiatives to be taken by the Government to support employers in preventing unemployment and hardships to employees

The Note outlines the implications of the Covid-19 crisis for national social protection systems and highlights specific social protection responses taken in countries in the Asia and Pacific region. It builds on a more comprehensive ILO Brief which offers policy considerations regarding the role of social protection in responding to the possible impacts of COVID-19 crisis. The Note also contains measures taken by various countries to protect employment and support enterprises.

Key Guidelines & Responses
Support job and income security for those affected by the crisis.

Contribute to preventing poverty, unemployment and informality

The absence of unemployment protection measures, including partial unemployment or partial income compensation, reduces the ability of companies to preserve jobs while coping with the financial impact of the crisis.

Several governments have taken measures to extend publicly financed sickness benefits to workers who are not otherwise entitled to paid sick leave

In view of the rapidly deepening economic consequences of the COVID-19 crisis, many governments have put in place measures to provide income support to the population through social assistance or other tax-financed benefits.

Temporarily modifying the payment of social security contributions and tax payments for enterprises

In order to alleviate liquidity constraints on enterprises, many governments have decided to allow enterprises to postpone the payment of social insurance contributions and taxes.

In China, provinces are allowed to exempt medium, small and micro-sized enterprises from employers’ contribution to three social insurance schemes for up to five months, namely: pension, unemployment and employment injury. Larger enterprises can reduce their contribution by 50 per cent for up to three months

The Employee Provident Fund in Malaysia reduced worker contributions from 11 per cent of their salary to four per cent. This is expected to increase the cash on hand in households

Finance Minister announces several relief measures relating to Statutory and Regulatory compliance matters across Sectors in view of COVID-19 outbreak

Key Highlights :

Income Tax

Extend last date for income tax returns for (FY 18-19) from 31st March, 2020 to 30th 1. June, 2020.

For delayed payments of advanced tax, self-assessment tax, regular tax, TDS, TCS, equalization levy, STT, CTT made between 20th March 2020 and 30th June 2020, reduced interest rate at 9% instead of 12 %/18 % per annum ( i.e. 0.75% per month instead of 1/1.5 percent per month) will be charged for this period. No late fee/penalty shall be charged for delay relating to this period.

Necessary legal circulars and legislative amendments for giving effect to the aforesaid relief shall be issued in due course.

GST/Indirect Tax

Those having aggregate annual turnover less than Rs. 5 Crore Last date can file GSTR-3B due in March, April and May 2020 by the last week of June, 2020. No interest, late fee, and penalty to be charged.

Others can file returns due in March, April and May 2020 by last week of June 2020 but the same would attract reduced rate of interest @9 % per annum from 15 days after due date (current interest rate is 18 % per annum). No late fee and penalty to be charged, if complied before till 30th June 2020.

Date for opting for composition scheme is extended till the last week of June, 2020. Further, the last date for making payments for the quarter ending 31st March, 2020 and filing of return for 2019-20 by the composition dealers will be extended till the last week of June, 2020.

Date for filing GST annual returns of FY 18-19, which is due on 31st March, 2020 is extended till the last week of June 2020.

Necessary legal circulars and legislative amendments to give effect to the aforesaid GST relief shall follow with the approval of GST Council.

Financial Services

Relaxations for 3 months Debit cardholders to withdraw cash for free from any other banks’ ATM for 3 months

Waiver of minimum balance fee

Reduced bank charges for digital trade transactions for all trade finance consumers

Corporate Affairs

No additional fees shall be charged for late filing during a moratorium period from 01st April to 30th September 2020, in respect of any document, return, statement etc., required to be filed in the MCA-21 Registry, irrespective of its due date, which will not only reduce the compliance burden, including financial burden of companies/ LLPs at large, but also enable long-standing non-compliant companies/ LLPs to make a ‘fresh start’;

The mandatory requirement of holding meetings of the Board of the companies within prescribed interval provided in the Companies Act (120 days), 2013, shall be extended by a period of 60 days till next two quarters i.e., till 30th September;

Applicability of Companies (Auditor’s Report) Order, 2020 shall be made applicable from the financial year 2020-2021 instead of from 2019-2020 notified earlier. This will significantly ease the burden on companies &their auditors for the year 2019-20.

As per Schedule 4 to the Companies Act, 2013, Independent Directors are required to hold at least one meeting without the attendance of Non-independent directors and members of management. For the year 2019-20, if the IDs of a company have not been able to hold even one meeting, the same shall not be viewed as a violation.

Requirement to create a Deposit reserve of 20% of deposits maturing during the financial year 2020-21 before 30th April 2020 shall be allowed to be complied with till 30th June 2020.

Requirement to invest 15% of debentures maturing during a particular year in specified instruments before 30th April 2020, may be done so before 30th June 2020.

Newly incorporated companies are required to file a declaration for Commencement of Business within months of incorporation. An additional time of 6 more months shall be allowed.

Non-compliance of minimum residency in India for a period of at least 182 days by at least one director of every company, under Section 149 of the Companies Act, shall not be treated as a violation.

Due to the emerging financial distress faced by most companies on account of the large-scale economic distress caused by COVID 19, it has been decided to raise the threshold of default under section 4 of the IBC 2016 to Rs 1 crore (from the existing threshold of Rs 1 lakh). This will by and large prevent triggering of insolvency proceedings against MSMEs. If the current situation continues beyond 30th of April 2020, we may consider suspending section 7, 9 and 10 of the IBC 2016 for a period of 6 months so as to stop companies at large from being forced into insolvency proceedings in such force majeure causes of default.

Detailed notifications/circulars in this regard shall be issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs separately.

Orders dated 24th March 2020 passed by the National Disaster Management Authority and the Ministry of Home Affairs for taking effective measures to control the spread of COVID 19 while ensuring maintenance of essential services and supplies including health infrastructutre. The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued guidelines for effective implementation of the orders passed by the NDMA to remain in force for a period of 21 days from 25th March 2020.

The guidelines also specify exlcusions/exemptions from the restrictions.with conditions.Excluded establishments, inter alia, include Manufacturing units of essential commodities, private security services. .Production units which require continuous process are permitted to operate after taking permission from the State Government.

The Distrcit Magistrate has been authorised to deploy Executive Magistrates as Incident Commanders for implementation of the preventive measures in their respective jurisdictions.The Incident Commander has been authorised to issue passes to enable essential movements.

NDMA Order
https://bombaychamber.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/24.3.20.1.pdf

MHA Order
https://bombaychamber.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/24.3.20.2.pdf

Ministry of Home Affairs Guidelines
https://bombaychamber.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/24.3.20.3.pdf

The Joint Secretary, Government of India has issued a communication dated 23rd March 2020 clarifying that spending of CSR funds for COVID 19 is eligible for CSR activity under items (i) and (xii) of Schedule VII relating to promotion of health care, etc.

The Government of India has published various notifications, advisories and guidelines for citizens, corporates and public authorities on preventive measures for containment of COVID -19. These are available on mygov.in/covid-19

The District Officer & District Magistrate, Thane, has, in exercise of the powers conferred upon him by the Government of Maharashtra under Sections 2, 3 & 4 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, has issued directions to implement certain containment/prevention measures of COVID-19 in Thane District vide orders dated 20th March 2020.

The Order dated 20th March, 2020, inter-alia, states that all Shops & Establishgments in Thane District should remain closed.

Establishments selling grocery, grains, milk, vegetables, medical stores, essential items/services (which would include hospitals and medical centres), parcel take way counters in hotels, are excluded from the shutdown. However such establishments should ensure that proper cleanliness and hygeine is maintained and visitors should be provided with handwash/sanitisers.

If  here is a doubt as to whether a service or establishment is essential or not, the District Officer would give a final decision on the same.

Failure to obey the aforesaid Orders issued by the District Officer would attract penalty under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code as provided in the Epidemic Diseases Act 1897.

Member Companies are advised to take appropriate steps and ensure compliance with the aforesaid Orders issued by the Competent Authority. If there is any doubt on the exlusions the opinion of the Competent Authority be obtained in writing.