Trump may announce foreignworkers’ visa restrictions today REUTERS

Washington, 21 June

President Donald Trump saidlate on Saturday he wouldannounce new restrictions onvisas within a couple of days toblock the entry of certain for-eign workers and protectAmericans struggling with a jobmarket devastated by the coro-navirus pandemic.

“We’re going to be announc-ing something tomorrow or thenext day on the visas,” he toldFox News Channel.

Asked if there would be

exclusions from the new restric-tions, Trump said very few.

“You need them for bigbusinesses where they havecertain people that have beencoming in for a long time, but

very little exclusion andthey’re pretty tight,” he said.“And we may even go verytight for a period of time.”

Trump, who has beenexpected to announce new

restrictions, declined to providefurther details.

Critics have said Trumplooked set to use the pandem-ic to achieve his longstandinggoal of limiting immigrationinto the United States. Histough stance on immigrationis central to his pitch to votersas he runs for re-election.

Major American compa-nies, particularly in the techsector, have urged Trump torefrain from blocking the flowof foreign workers into theUnited States, saying it wouldhurt the economy.

ITC cannot beavailed onGST paid forstaff cabs

PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

New Delhi, 21 June

Companies will not be able toclaim input tax credit (ITC) forGST paid on hiring commer-cial vehicles for transporta-tion of employees, if providingsuch a service is not obligato-ry under any law, theAuthority for Advance Ruling(AAR) has said.

On an application filed byPrasar Bharti BroadcastingCorporation (All India Radio),Shimla, the HimachalPradesh bench of AAR citedGST law to state ITC shall beavailable on fulfilment of onecondition — "such goods orservices or both shall be oblig-atory for an employer to pro-vide to its employees underany law for the time beingforce". The applicant, who is apublic service broadcaster,sought to know whether ITCwill be available on taxi hiringservices like pickup/drop-offstaff, including ladies andhandicapped employees, inodd hours.

The company also hirestaxi for tour/OB recordingswith the state.

The AAR in its ruling saidsince the applicant failed tocite any law under which theservice of providing trans-portation facility to itsemployees is obligatory, ITCwill not be available.

"If the facility provided bya taxpayer for transportationof employees is not obligatoryunder any law for the timebeing in force, then no ITC willbe available to such a taxpay-er," the AAR said.

Critics have said Trump lookedset to use the pandemic toachieve his longstanding goalof limiting immigration intothe United States. His toughstance on immigration iscentral to his pitch to votersas he runs for re-election

Diesel price at record high afterrates hiked for 15th day in a rowPRESS TRUST OF INDIA

New Delhi, 21 June

Diesel price on Sunday hit arecord high after rates werehiked by 60 paise per litre whilepetrol price was up 35 paise, tak-ing the cumulative increase inrates in 15 days to ~8.88 a litreand ~ 7.97 respectively.

Petrol price in Delhi washiked to ~79.23 per litre from~78.88, while diesel rates wereincreased to ~78.27 a litrefrom ~77.67, according to aprice notification of state oilmarketing companies.

Rates have been increasedacross the country and varyfrom state to state dependingon the incidence of local salestax or VAT. Taxes make up fornearly two-thirds of the retailselling price. As much as~50.69 per litre, or 64 percent, in petrol price is due totaxes — ~32.98 is the centralexcise duty and ~17.71 is localsales tax or VAT.

Over 63 per cent of theretail selling price of diesel istaxes. Out of the total tax inci-

dence of ~49.43 per litre,~31.83 is by way of centralexcise and ~17.60 is VAT.Petrol in Mumbai costs~86.04 per litre and diesel ispriced at ~76.69.

The 15th daily increase inrates since oil companies onJune 7 restarted revisingprices in line with costs afterending an 82-day hiatus inrate revision, has taken dieselprices to fresh highs. Petrolprice too is at a two-year high.

Prior to the current rally,the peak diesel rates hadtouched was on October 16,2018 when prices hadclimbed to ~75.69 per litre inDelhi. The highest-everpetrol price was on October4, 2018 when rates soared to~84 a litre in Delhi.

When rates had peaked inOctober 2018, the governmenthad cut excise duty on petroland diesel by ~1.50 per litreeach. State-owned oil compa-

nies were asked to absorbanother ~1 a litre to help cutretail rates by ~2.50 a litre.

Oil companies had quicklyrecouped the ~1 and the gov-ernment in July 2019 raisedexcise duty by ~2 a litre.

The 82-day freeze in ratesthis year was imposed in mid-March soon after the govern-ment hiked excise duty onpetrol and diesel to shore upadditional finances.

The government onMarch 14 hiked excise dutyon petrol and diesel by ~3 perlitre each and then again onMay 5 by a record ~10 per litrein case of petrol and ~13 ondiesel. The two hikes gave thegovernment ~2 trillion inadditional tax revenues.Indian Oil, Bharat PetroleumCorp and HindustanPetroleum Corp, instead ofpassing on the excise dutyhikes to customers, adjustedthem against the fall in theretail rates that was warrant-ed because of a decline ininternational oil prices to two-decade lows.

14 MUMBAI | MONDAY, 22 JUNE 2020 1>

306 deaths, 15,413 new cases in a day

AGENCIES

New Delhi, 21 June

Eight days after recording 300,000Covid-19 cases, India went past the400,000-mark on Sunday with the

biggest single-day spike of 15,413 newinfections, while the death toll rose to13,254 with 306 fatalities, according tothe health ministry data.

India took 64 days to cross the100,000-mark from 100 cases, anotherfortnight to reach the grim milestone of200,000 cases and then in another 10days, it went past the 300,000-mark.

The country has been registeringrecord single-day spikes for the past fourdays. The jump of 15,413 cases has takenIndia’s case load to 4,10,461.

The number of recoveries also contin-ued to surge with 227,755 patients cured so

far, while there were 169,451 active cases,according to the updated official figuresat 8 am. One patient has migrated.

The number of recovered patients hascrossed the number of active patients by58,305. During the last 24 hours, a total of

13,925 Covid-19 patients have recovered,taking the recovery rate to 55.49 per centamongst novel coronavirus patients.

India registered over 10,000 cases forthe 10th day in a row.

Meanwhile, cases in Delhi neared the

60,000-mark on Sunday with 3,500 morepeople testing positive, even as worriedauthorities were planning steps to makecontact tracing more robust to arrest thespread of the infection in the Capital.

Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal, Chief

Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputyManish Sisodia held a virtual meetingwith Home Minister Amit Shah to discussstrategies to make contact tracing moreeffective and strengthen medical servicesin Covid-19 affected areas in the city.

COVID IMPACT

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| Lockdown extended in Mizoram

| Trump terms virus ‘Kung flu’

| Covid led to 2 million job losses in bus,taxi sector in India: Association

| Bangladesh’s national carrier resumesinternational flights; cases at 112,306

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| PepsiCo suspends operations in Beijingafter workers test positive

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For four consecutive days, Covid-19cases have been rising ata record level,taking India beyond the 400,000-markand fatalities crossing 13,000. Even asIndia sawa record increase ofover15,000 cases on June 21, the dailyincrease in cases has hovered around 3 per centor less for the pastfour days.While more than 55 per centofthepatients have been cured, rising cases incities such as Delhi, which added over3,500 cases in a single day, have becomea cause for concern. RUCHIKA CHITRAVANSHI

TOTAL CASES500,000400,000300,000200,000100,000

0Mar 15,’20 Jun 21,’20

110

410,461

NEW CASES20,00016,00012,000

8,0004,000

0Mar 16,’20 Jun 21,’20

4

15,413

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

TALLY CROSSES 400K-MARK

AS CASES CONTINUE TO RISE

Shah meets Kejriwal 3rdtime in a week; Delhi to go for aggressivecontact tracing

Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, and othersduring a meeting on strengthening Covid-19 response in the Delhi PHOTO:PTI

Centre praises BMC as Dharavi’sCovid-19 growth rate falls to 1%PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

Mumbai, 21 June

The Centre praised theMumbai civic body on Sundayfor “actively” chasing the nov-el coronavirus in Dharavi, say-ing proactive measuresreduced the growth rate of theinfection in Asia’s largest slumto 1.02 per cent in June from 12per cent in April.

The Union Health Ministryalso lauded theBrihanmumbai MunicipalCorporation (BMC) for ensur-ing a steep decline of dailyCovid-19 cases in Dharavifrom an average of 43 in Mayto 19 in the third week of June.

Through a pre-emptive,proactive, and gradedresponse policy, the Centre istaking several steps along withthe states and Union territo-ries for prevention, contain-ment and management ofCovid-19, the ministry said ina statement.

In this effort, various

guidelines, advisories andtreatment protocols have beendeveloped and shared withthe states to strengthen thecollective response towardcombating Covid-19, the state-ment said.

Noting that several stateshave implemented these con-tainment strategies and pro-duced effective outcomes, theCentre said the efforts of theMaharashtra government andthe BMC had shown encour-aging results.

“As part of these efforts,they have actively chased thevirus and aggressively con-ducted targeted tracing ofCovid suspects,” the ministrysaid.

“Being densely populated(2,27,136 persons/sqkm),Dharavi had 491 cases in April2020 with a 12 per cent growthrate and a case doubling peri-od of 18 days,” it said. "Theproactive measures adoptedby BMC reduced the Covid-19growth rate to 4.3 per cent in

May 2020 and further to 1.02per cent in June.” Thesemeasures also ensured animproved case doubling timeto 43 days in May and 78 daysin June, the Centre said.

The BMC faced severalchallenges in Dharavi where80 per cent of the populationdepends on community toi-lets, it said.

About 8-10 people live inhouseholds or hutment thatmeasures about 10/10 feet,coupled with existence of nar-row lanes with two-three-storey houses where often theground floor is a house andother floors are used as facto-ries, the statement said.

Hence, there were severelimitations of physical dis-tancing with no possibility ofeffective ‘home quarantine’,it said.

The BMC adopted a modelof actively following the fourT’s – tracing, tracking, testingand treating, the ministrysaid.

13 NHRCemployeestest positivefor CovidThirteen employees of theNational Human RightsCommission (NHRC), includ-ing some senior officials, havetested positive for Covid-19 inthe past ten days, sources saidon Sunday.

The NHRC office is locatedin the six-storeyedManavadhikar Bhawan inINA area in south Delhi.

“Thirteen employees havetested positive for Covid-19,including some senior offi-cials. We have informed thesurveillance team of the gov-ernment. Many people havegone into home isolationalready and full contacting-tracing is being done,” asource said.

Sources said these caseshave come up in the last tendays, adding that severalemployees were coming tooffice after the lockdown waseased.

PTI