West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra on Tuesday said the state was not ready to accept the Goods and Services Tax in its current form, reported NDTV. It is supposed to be launched on July 1.
“Bengal is not ready to accept GST in its current form,” Mitra said. “I have raised issues with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. I will raise them again in the June 3 [Saturday] meeting.” The Trinamool Congress minister had not attended the recent GST meeting held n Srinagar.
Mitra said large industries would benefit from GST but the fate of the small and medium industries was uncertain. In November, he had walked out of a GST meeting saying the central government was rushing to roll out the new tax regime “without proper studies about possible impact”.
“The fight is still on,” Mitra said on Tuesday. “Majority of the country is still not ready to roll out GST.” West Bengal is yet to take up GST in the state Assembly.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been the one of the strongest opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his policies in the recent past. She was the first opposition leader to criticise the Centre’s demonetisation drive citing its impact on poor households and small traders. Bengal is also one of the states to oppose Centre’s new rule banning sale of cattle in animal markets for slaughter.
Banerjee on Monday said the new rules were “undemocratic and unconstitutional” and reflected “a destructive attitude to federal structure, unnecessary bulldozing, encroaching and interference to federal structure”.
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