Delaying the GST Bill will only hurt States: Jaitley to Opposition

The decks have been cleared for the Constitution Amendment Bill for introduction of Goods & Services Tax (GST) to be taken up for voting in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The Speaker has decided against referring the Bill to the Parliamentary Standing Committee, a demand by the Opposition.

The Centre has been maintaining that since the Bill has already been discussed by a Parliamentary panel during the 15th Lok Sabha, there was no need to resend it to the committee. Besides, the Modi government has not made too many changes to the Bill from the one tabled by the UPA regime, said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Jaitley’s arguments were accepted by the Chair after the presiding officer, Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai, reiterated the earlier ruling of Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.

Deadline will be missed While replying to issues on procedure raised by members of the Congress, the BJD, the AIADMK and the Left, Jaitley said if the GST Bill was sent back to the panel, it would deny benefits to the States by another year as the deadline of April 1, 2016 will be “missed”. There was a ‘broad consensus’ in the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on the provisions of the Bill, he said, adding that a sort of consensus had emerged between the Centre and the States. He appealed to the Opposition parties to “rise above partisan” considerations as “no purpose will be served” by delaying the passage of the crucial Bill as it would be the States which would suffer financially.

The main Opposition party, the Congress, has already made it clear that it will press for the Bill to be put before a Select Committee. Though the Congress is not opposing GST

per se , it wants proper procedures to be followed in getting the Bill passed. According to a PTI report, while the TMC said it was “broadly supporting” the Bill, the AIADMK said it was against it as Tamil Nadu would lose over ₹10,000 crore due to the new tax structure.

According to the news agency, Congress leader M Veerappa Moily initiated the debate with a teaser, “I stand to support GST”, prompting Jaitley to congratulate him. However, the Congress leader made a strong plea to the Government that it send the legislation to the Standing Committee for wider consultation. He said over 140 countries have GST measures and India could have ‘borrowed’ and ‘learnt’ from them to come out with a law that would help it to be “in the frontline of developed countries”.

For the Government, the real test will, however, be in the Rajya Sabha where it is in minority.