NEW DELHI: Union Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said today Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council will meet on June 3 to fix rates for certain items that could not be decided upon at its meeting in Srinagar.
Inaugurating an ASSOCHAM-CEAMA GST Summit for traders, Mr Meghwal said, “We have also received representations from some sectors including textile for which the rates had been fixed. We will discuss it in the next GST Council meeting.
“In textile sector, garment manufacturers and cloth manufacturers want different rates, we will discuss these issues on June 3.” He said the Finance Ministry has advised the trade and industry bodies along with its three technical institutes — Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) and Institute of Cost Accountants of India (ICAI) to organise awareness campaigns as GST is likely to be rolled out from July 1.
He said so far whatever decisions have been taken by the GST Council are not based on majority but on the basis of consensus among all state Finance Ministers.
The Minister said GST will help bring down logistics cost and that would perhaps be the biggest benefit of this game-changing reform. “Recently an international conference on logistics charges was organised by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari whereby we observed that logistics charges in developed countries like Canada, US, France, Germany and others is a meagre eight per cent whereas in India it is about 13.5 per cent,” said Mr Meghwal.
“We include transportation and warehouse charges in logistics charges, GST will bring down logistics costs massively and bring us at par with the developed nations,” he added.
“We live in WTO-era, when there is such a difference in costs for the same product it does not provide India a level playing field as such implementation of GST is a must,” further said Mr Meghwal. Highlighting certain other possible benefits of GST, the Union Minister said GST would undoubtedly lead to ease of doing business, besides it will also simplify filling returns, widen tax net, reduce human interface and curb corruption.
“For years together we have lived as a society which believed in tax evasion but now we have to be prepared for this slight change and help India rise up to paying taxes,” he said. He added that 2017 will be remembered as a year of unprecedented economic reforms.
On the low GDP numbers in the quarter to March, to 6.1 per cent, Mr Meghwal termed it a ‘temporary phase,’ and said there is no need to fear as the country’s economy is growing rapidly. (AGENCIES)
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