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After a gap of nearly four months, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rollout efforts are set to be revived.
The Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers is scheduled to meet on Monday to choose a new Chairman to replace Dr Asim Dasgupta. This follows the Left Front’s defeat in the recent West Bengal Assembly elections.
The frontrunner to replace the suave and articulate MIT alumnus, Dr Asim Dasgupta, is the Kerala Finance Minister, Mr K.M. Mani, who has already made public his interest for the coveted post. Others in the fray for the top job include the Orissa Finance Minister, Mr Prafulla Chandra Ghadei, sources close to the developments said.
Five states — Kerala, West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry went in for Assembly polls during April-May this year. The Assembly polls had distracted the working of the Empowered Committee, which has been tasked to build consensus for this major indirect tax reform and also facilitate the constitutional amendment for the introduction of dual GST.
A constitutional amendment Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in the Budget session of Parliament this year. This Bill was referred to the Standing Committee of Finance, which has now sought stakeholder comments on the same.
The proposed dual GST is expected to subsume most of the indirect taxes like excise duty and service tax at the central level and value added tax (VAT) and other local levies like octroi, electricity duty at the State level.
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