 "West Bengal indefinitely postpones GST discussion in Assembly")
The West Bengal government has temporarily shelved plans to discuss the GST Constitution Amendment Bill in a special West Bengal Assembly session on August 29th.
“We need time to discuss GST amongst ourselves,” West Bengal Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee told Business Standard. However, he added the state has no stated objection to any of the clauses of GST.
The GST bill needs to be ratified by 50% of the Indian states before it can be sent for President’s assent.
Notably, West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra, chairman of the empowered committee of finance ministers on GST, is seen as one of the key personalities behind bringing states together towards agreement over GST. Earlier, West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee had extended full-fledged support to GST, and even asked Mitra to expedite the process. In fact, soon after the passage of GST bill in Rajya Sabha, she had tweeted, “We have consistently supported the idea and implementation of GST. Good constitutional amendment was passed today."
West Bengal government’s decision to delay the ratification comes at a time when Banerjee has been vehemently raising concerns over Centre’s intervention in state matters. In particular, the state is irked over Modi government’s move for setting up a central committee to monitor its schemes and the funds it sends to states, including West Bengal.
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“The situation in the country is worse than Emergency now. In the name of cooperative federalism, opinions of States are being bulldozed. If States pay most of the funds, why should the schemes be named after leaders of the ruling party in the Centre. I have never seen a more arrogant Central Government. Do they want to do away with State governments? The Centre wants to control how States spend their Budget money? They want to appoint a person to State treasury. Why? They want to control the functioning of the States even at BDO level. Why will we allow that?,” according to a statement issued by All India Trinamool Congress in its website.
Gujarat, Assam, Bihar and Jharkhand have already ratified the GST Bill. The central government has set a deadline of April, 2017 for its rollout.