NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday introduced the last batch of legislations in the Lok Sabha for rolling out the goods and services tax (GST).
The four legislations and related changes in existing laws were introduced in the Lok Sabha and would be taken up for discussion on Wednesday. The government wants the House to pass the bills latest by Thursday this week. It will, then, present them in the Rajya Sabha.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley introduced the four bills on GST as money bills.
Upon introduction of the bills, K C Venugopal of the Congress raised an objection saying that they were not part of the List of Business in the Lok Sabha, but S S Ahluwalia, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, explained that the bills were approved on Friday night and as the Lok Sabha secretariat was on holiday over the weekend, business was revised and the bills were introduced.
Looking forward to a consensus on the GST Bill, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar earlier in the day expressed the hope that the above legislation is passed in the ongoing Budget Session of Parliament. “Hope everyone will support the government on it.
The government is committed to ensuring the passage of GST in the ongoing Budget Session,” he added.
The GST Council and the Union Cabinet have already given their nod to the Central GST, Integrated GST, Union Territory GST and Compensation Bill.
The four GST legislations are the last remaining pieces for the ambitious indirect tax reform, which the government wants to implement from July 1, 2017.