Aware of the challenges that still lie ahead before the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime could be rolled out by April 1, 2017, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his senior bureaucrats were today measured in their response when the GST Constitutional amendment Bill was ratified by Odisha -- the 16th state to do so.
With this, the government has crossed a key hurdle, as the Bill can get presidential assent only if at least half of 31 state assemblies ratify it.
The BJP, lest it is yet again painted as 'suit-boot ki sarkar', or a government of moneybags, as Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi did when he criticised the government's land Bill, was wary of extolling the virtues of the GST regime as a boon for ease of doing business. Instead, party spokespersons insisted the reform will be poor friendly since it will reduce corruption.
The BJP line is consistent with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah having in recent days imploring party chief ministers, leaders and Members of Parliament to showcase the BJP-led union government's pro-poor, pro-farmer and pro-worker schemes and policies. Party leadership has been stressing on the fact that 65 of the 80 programmes and schemes launched by the Modi government since May 2014 are to be implemented by state governments. The BJP and the government, while committed to GST reform, is keen to prevent a repeat of 2004 when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government lost when its 'India Shining' campaign boomeranged.
From the government side, finance ministry officials noted Odisha having become the 16th state to ratify the Bill. "The requisite numbers of states have ratified the GST Constitution Amendment Bill and now it can go for Presidential assent," Finance Minister Jaitlely tweeted.
In his tweets, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said: "Glad to inform that we are ahead of our schedule for implementation of GST so far. Instead of 30 days kept for this it is achieved in 23 days. With Odisha ratifying the Constitutional Amendment bill for GST, minimum requirement of 50 per cent states ratifying the bill is complete."
The Bill will now be placed before President Pranab Mukherjee for his assent. This will pave the way for constituting the GST Council. The government hopes to roll out the tax regime by April 1. For this to happen, it needs to ensure the passage of supplementary GST Bills - the Central GST and Integrated GST Bills - in the winter session of Parliament. There are suggestions that the winter session be advanced from its usual start in the third week of November to the first week. The states will also need to pass the State GST Bill.
Before all this, the state finance ministers along with the union finance minister, all of whom will comprise the GST Council, would need to agree on a GST rate, tax slabs and exempted goods and services.
