Answer: A ‘Person of Indian Origin (PIO)’ is a person resident outside India who is a citizen of any country other than Bangladesh or Pakistan or such other country as may be specified by the Central Government, satisfying the following conditions:

1. Who was a citizen of India by virtue of the Constitution of India or the Citizenship Act, 1955 (57 of 1955); or

2. Who belonged to a territory that became part of India after the 15th day of August, 1947; or

3. Who is a child or a grandchild or a great grandchild of a citizen of India or of a person referred to in clause (a) or (b); or

4. Who is a spouse of foreign origin of a citizen of India or spouse of foreign origin of a person referred to in clause (a) or (b) or (c)

A PIO will include an ‘Overseas Citizen of India’ cardholder within the meaning of Section 7(A) of the Citizenship Act, 1955. Such an OCI Card holder should also be a person resident outside India.

To widen the access of foreign exchange facilities to residents and tourists while ensuring efficient customer service through competition.

Ans. Foreign exchange can be purchased from any authorised person, such as an AD Category-I bank and AD Category II. Full-Fledged Money Changers (FFMCs) are also permitted to release exchange for business and private visits.

RBI carries out the general banking business of the governments through its own offices and commercial banks, both public and private, appointed as its agents. Section 45 of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, provides for appointment of scheduled commercial banks as agents at all places or at any place in India, for purposes that it may specify, “having regard to public interest, convenience of banking, banking development and such other factors which in its opinion are relevant in this regard”.

Reserve Bank of India maintains the Principal Accounts of Central as well as State Governments at its Central Accounts Section, Nagpur. It has put in place a well-structured arrangement for revenue collection as well as payments on behalf of Government across the country. A network comprising the Government Banking Divisions of RBI and branches of agency banks appointed under Section 45 of the RBI Act carry out the government transactions. At present all the public sector banks and select private sector banks act as RBI's agents. Only designated branches of agency banks can conduct government banking business.

The availability of non-competitive bidding facility in an auction will be announced along with the respective press release and the information is made available on Reserve Bank’s website.

Primarily, there are two variants of ECS - ECS Credit and ECS Debit. ECS Credit is used by an institution for affording credit to a large number of beneficiaries (for instance, employees, investors etc.) having accounts with bank branches at various locations within the jurisdiction of a ECS Centre by raising a single debit to the bank account of the user institution. ECS Credit enables payment of amounts towards distribution of dividend, interest, salary, pension, etc., of the user institution. ECS Debit is used by an institution for raising debits to a large number of accounts (for instance, consumers of utility services, borrowers, investors in mutual funds etc.) maintained with bank branches at various locations within the jurisdiction of a ECS Centre for single credit to the bank account of the user institution. ECS Debit is useful for payment of telephone / electricity / water bills, cess / tax collections, loan installment repayments, periodic investments in mutual funds, insurance premium etc., that are periodic or repetitive in nature and payable to the user institution by large number of customers etc.

The Banking Ombudsman is a senior official appointed by the Reserve Bank of India to redress customer complaints against deficiency in certain banking services covered under the grounds of complaint specified under Clause 8 of the Banking Ombudsman Scheme 2006 (As amended upto July 1, 2017).

Non-competitive bidding means the bidder would be able to participate in the auctions of dated government securities without having to quote the yield or price in the bid. Thus, he will not have to worry about whether his bid will be on or off-the-mark; as long as he bids in accordance with the scheme, he will be allotted securities fully or partially.

Banks can pay interest on savings bank accounts at quarterly or longer rests.

Authorised dealers can permit such remittance, subject to the position stated for Question 1 above, after netting of the commission of local advertisement agent, as also local television channel agent and applicable taxes. Authorised dealers are required to satisfy themselves about the applicant's eligibility to advertise, bonafides of the transactions, and that they are in compliance with the Government of India Notification No.G.S.R.381(E) dated May 3, 2000 and S.O.301(E) dated March 30, 2001.