New Delhi: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley warned Tuesday that efforts to create hurdles in the passage of the Goods and Services Tax would amount to damaging the country. “India desperately needs GST, businesses and trade need GST and anybody who tries to create hurdles in passing GST will be doing great damage to the country,” he said.
He said GST was important and all parties should come together. “Now a revenue-neutral rate of 15 per cent has been announced... that was not even discussed. People were discussing 22, 24 per cent,” the minister said.
Mr Jaitley noted the GST Bill had been initiated by the Congress itself, and it should help in its passage in the country’s interests. “If the Congress Party intends to pass GST and help in passing GST, which in all fairness I must concede was an initiative started by the Congress itself, it will be doing fair to its own programme, it will be doing fair to the country,” he said.
Hopes of the GST Bill getting passed were raised after Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former PM Manmohan Singh to break the ice over the critical reform measure. After that, a panel headed by chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian recommended the maximum possible tax base under the proposed Goods and Services Tax should be taxed at the standard rate, which it proposed be kept at 17-18 per cent. It also backed scrapping the controversial proposal of one per cent additional levy by states on the cross-border transport of goods.
These had met the Congress’ two key demands on the tax rate and removing the one per cent additional levy. It now appears, however, that the GST Bill may get further delayed due to the deterioration in ties between the BJP and Congress over the National Herald case.
Industry leaders have been actively lobbying for the early implementation of GST. Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra said Tuesday that without GST, the country was divided and was prevented from becoming a common market. “Without GST we effectively divide our own country and prevent it being a common market. We render ineffective our own secret weapon,” Mr Mahindra said on Twitter. He added: “(The) simplest way I know of understanding the significance of the GS Tax: In a fragile world, India’s Brahmastra is its huge domestic market.”
