Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 17: Cautioning against any hasty decision on the imposition of General Sales Tax (GST) regime, senior PDP leader and Member Parliament, Tariq Hameed Karra today said the Government of India must ensure that the special taxation powers of the States like Jammu and Kashmir don’t get compromised under the new taxation framework.
“J&K is bound to lose most heavily both financially and politically from the imposition of GST regime,” Karra told the Lok Sabha while participating in the discussion on Budget 2014-15.
He said if GST regime is implemented in J&K in its present form and shape, neither the State legislature nor the State Cabinet will have an unfettered say on taxation.
“In the proposed framework the Union Finance Minister can shoot down any proposal coming from the State on tax rates, goods to be left out of GST, which would be an irreparable loss for J&K which is the only State in the country that has the power to tax services,” he said.
He said under GST regime the State Government can’t even offer tax rebates to industry and other enterprises on its own which would set a blow to the budding industry in J&K.
Reiterating the party’s demand for setting up an IIM and AIIMS in Srinagar, Karra said J&K should be included in various flagship initiatives announced by the Government of India in the Budget 2014-15. To cope up with the burgeoning unemployment problem in the State, he said Rs 1000 crore should be provided to J&K out of the Rs 10,000 crore corpus of venture capital fund.
Karra also asserted for including Srinagar in the list of 100 smart cities to be developed with a corpus funding of Rs 7,060 crore earmarked in the budget. He also added that Srinagar should be also included in the list of cities for Metro projects as traffic congestion and road rage has become a major life threat in the City.
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