Dr Amit Mitra, Former Finance Minister of West Bengal on Wednesday wrote to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman aiming for an urgent Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting, which he pointed out had not taken place in the last four and a half months.
He was one of the founding members of the GST Council Meeting and is the Principal Chief Advisor to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and noted that Rule 6 of the GST Council’s Procedure and Conduct of Business Regulations clearly states that “the Council shall meet at least once in every quarter of the financial year “.
The economist wrote that “Yet, in gross violation of this sacred provision, you have not convened a single meeting of the Council (physical or virtual) in the last four and a half months,”. He further stated that “Even the Minister of State for West Bengal, Minister of State for Finance or any other member of the GST Council was not informed about any emergency”.
Read Also: Major GST Issues/Problems Seen Across India Till Now
Noting that the outcome of the two Group of Ministers (GoMs) constituted on 24.09.2021 and 24.05.2021 are yet to be finalised, with interim reports submitted by only one of them, Dr Mitra stated that the Council needed to meet to resolve the important GST issues that these ministerial panels were tasked to review.
Dr Mitra also pointed out that in the “federal spirit” all states were doing a great job of increasing GST collections, which benefited states but also equally benefited the central government. He said the West Bengal government’s zero tolerance on defaults in filing GST returns helped in 93% filing compliance during the April-October period, as against 70% last year.
Dr Mitra’s message to the Union Finance Minister comes a day after Ms Banerjee attacked her for saying that the Center should stop collecting GST if it did not pay dues to states.
