West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said the Trinamool Congress will not attend the launch of the Goods and Services Tax regime, scheduled for June 30 midnight.
Calling the event “another epic blunder by the Centre”, the TMC chief said in a Facebook post that her party was “worried” about the way the Centre was implementing the GST, and that the government had ignored its suggestions to postpone the launch.
Banerjee claimed that “the entire business community, especially the small and medium ones, are scared and confused” and also alleged that essential commodities such as medicines were unavailable at many places, and prices were rising because of lack of clarity on the new tax regime.
“Small business entities are not yet ready with the basic requirements like invoice, accounting system, IT system, etc,” she said. “We feel at least six months will be necessary to notify all rules and procedures and will give enough time to the stakeholders...to successfully implement the GST.”
Banerjee also warned of a “chaotic situation” in the country if firms were not given this window.
President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and MPs will be present at the GST launch. Former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and HD Deve Gowda have also been invited, The Indian Express reported.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said on Tuesday that there should be no politics over the GST launch as all decisions had been made by the GST Council. Commerce and Industries Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had refuted concerns about rising prices of essential commodities under the new regime.
Earlier on Wednesday, the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Authority removed excise duty on 761 medicines to reduce the impact of GST on their prices.
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