Comments
The Centre is fully geared up to tackle any situation arising out of deficient monsoon, Union Minister of State for Finance, Jayant Sinha said here on Saturday.
According to him, the Centre had managed a similar situation (of deficient monsoon) very well last year. And because of that it was fully geared up this year.
"Last year, monsoon was 88 per cent of the long term average. Despite that we were able to manage the overall situation quite well both in terms of supply of food items and inflation as well... Obviously because of that we are fully prepared this year for the monsoon," he told reporters on the sidelines of an interactive session organised by the Bharat Chamber of Commerce.
Sinha added that the Centre already has its contingency plans and rapid response mechanisms in place.
"We will be able to handle all possible situations, whether deficient or otherwise," he said.
GST Bill
Hopeful of passing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill in the ongoing session of Parliament, Sinha said there was a broad-based consensus on it and there was unlikely to be any opposition to it.
The GST bill was placed before Parliament yesterday.
According to him, there are some implementation issues that are yet to be resolved. These issues - on implementation and formulation, the Minister said, are likely to be resolved in the GST Council meeting scheduled in May this year.
"As of now there is a broad-based consensus on the GST Bill and we don't expect any opposition to it," he said.
CST dues
According to Sinha, the Centre has also begun payouts towards clearing the Central Sales Tax dues of the States.
Blaming the Congress led UPA for not clearing CST dues to the tunes of over ₹30,000 crore; he said this has created a sense of deep mistrust between the Centre and the States.
"We are trying to rebuild this trust," he said.
Payments will be made in three tranches; of which one to the tune of approximately ₹ 11,000 crore has been made towards the end of last fiscal (FY-15).
The second tranche will be broken into two installments to be paid this fiscal. The third payout will happen a year later, in 2016-17.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.