New Delhi, Sep 6: In a gesture underscoring the spirit of cooperative federalism, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has written to finance ministers of all states, expressing gratitude for their support and active role in helping implement the landmark overhaul of the goods and services tax (GST) regime.
In an interview with PTI, Sitharaman said states made their view on the proposal to rejig tax rates but ultimately agreed that it was for the benefit of the common man, an argument that helped reach a unanimous decision at the GST Council meeting earlier this week.
The overhaul, which will from September 22 see rates of a wide swath of products — from butter to chocolates and shampoos to tractors and air conditioners — come down, was agreed at a meeting of the GST Council on September 3. The panel is headed by Sitharaman and includes representatives of all states and Union Territories. “Yesterday, I have written a letter to each finance minister thanking them, saying, you can have any number of intense discussion and argument, but finally, the Council rose to the occasion and gave relief to the people of India, to all people of India. And, I am grateful for that gesture. So, I wrote that letter,” she said.She said the work at the Council was truly “remarkable”.
Despite apprehensions over loss of revenue from classifying most products into categories: 5 per cent for common use goods and 18 per cent for everything else, and doing away with 12 and 28 per cent slabs, the GST Council took a unanimous decision for the GST rejig.
The panel was to meet for two days starting September 3 to discuss the proposal made by the Centre but ended up approving it on the very first day after a marathon daylong meeting. (PTI)
“So the sense of the house was, this is a proposal which is going to undoubtedly benefit the common man. There is no point in standing against it… Ultimately everybody came together for a good cause, and I’m truly very grateful,” she said. (PTI)
