NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said supporting legislations for implementation of goods and services tax will be introduced in Parliament next week. The finance minister maintained that GST is likely to be rolled out from July 1.
Jaitley said there is long procedure before the Bills are introduced in Parliament and the GST Council cleared those four bills only last week.
“All that exercise has been completed in the last 2-3 days… Next week, it should be introduced in Parliament and then taken up for consideration,” he said at an award function of CNBC TV18. Jaitley further said nine different regulations have to be framed for GST. “Four have already been approved by the GST Council, some marginal changes may be required. For other five, the drafts are being prepared and these are going to be circulated to states. We are meeting on March 31. So, hopefully all those regulations will be approved on March 31,” he said. Earlier in the day, Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal had said the government may table the four GST supplementary legislations in Parliament today. After the March 31 meeting, Jaitley said experts who have been assisting the GST Council will start working on the rate structure. “Now in the first instance, so as not to upset the applecart, we are following a more logical, arithmetic formula,” he added. Earlier this week, the Union Cabinet cleared four supplementary GST legislations — CGST, IGST, UTGST and Compensation Law. Yesterday, the Cabinet approved amendments in the Customs and Excise Act relating to abolition of cesses and surcharges on various goods and services to facilitate implementation of GST. These amendments too will be introduced in Parliament. To a query on relationship that the RBI and the government share, Jaitley said both have got defined areas of jurisdiction. “At the end of the day, both have to respect those defined areas… you also have to bear in mind that the elected government is the only accountable institution. Therefore, its decisions have a significant value,” the finance minister said.—PTI