GST Bill tabled in LS, fate uncertain in RS

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 5

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill was taken up for consideration in the Lok Sabha today after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley appealed to parties that any further delay would mean that it would not be able to meet its deadline of April 1 next year.

Jaitley asked political parties to rise above partisan considerations to support it and said a full financial year of implementation of the GST could be lost due to the delay.

In the Lok Sabha, the government does not have much of a problem in getting the measure through with support from the BJP and its allies and possibly parties such as the Trinamool Congress, but its fate is uncertain in the Rajya Sabha where it lacks numbers.

The Constitution amendment Bill for rolling in the new tax regime was taken up in the Lok Sabha after the chair rejected Opposition demands to refer the key reform measure to a Parliamentary Standing Committee. Jaitley dismissed the Opposition demand saying it was wrong to argue that the measure had never been to a standing committee.

“It has spent two and half years before the standing committee. Thereafter, it has been to several empowered committees of finance ministers under three different FMs and four different chairpersons. It is only after this a consensus was reached between the Centre and the state government and almost a near unanimity has been achieved,” he said.