The Group of State Ministers set up to examine the technical glitches faced by the Goods and Services Tax Network will hold its first meeting in Bengaluru on Saturday.

The five-member Group, chaired by Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, was set up following a decision by the GST Council to look into difficulties in return filing by tax payers.

The Finance Ministry had then set up the committee on September 12 to “monitor and resolve the IT challenges faced in the implementation of GST”.

The other members include Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac, Chhatisgarh Minister for Commercial Taxes Amar Agarwal, Karnataka Agriculture Minister Krishna Byregowda, and Telangana Finance Minister Etela Rajendar.

Besides, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, GSTN Chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey and GSTN CEO Prakash Kumar will also attend the meeting.

Meanwhile, taxpayers and businesses are hopeful that the committee will come up with some effective redressal mechanisms.

While the GSTN had been asking taxpayers to upload their invoices well in time before the last date, many still faced problems.

“Taxpayers who faced issues with uploading their data and had to wait for nearly 10-15 hours for it to show up on the government website or were worried about credit not appearing, will be relieved. This gives more time for taxpayers and technology infrastructure to prepare for full fledged filing later,” said Archit Gupta, Founder and CEO, ClearTax.

To help taxpayers, the GST Council in its last meeting extended the date for filing GSTR-1 for the month of July to October 10.

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