The government is in full swing to implement the GST Act by April 2017. A short winter session of Parliament will be held post-Diwali in order to ratify several changes in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Act. To meet the predetermined timeline, the govt has started contacting the political parties to decide the session schedule at earliest.
The early convening of Parliament will give two months gap before the next budget session, which will take place in January.
The first set of GST Council meeting is likely to continue till September 29. Meanwhile, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will participate in the deliberations before going abroad for the International Monetary Fund-World Bank meetings. The agenda of the meeting between the chairman Jaitley and the state finance ministers is that there should be a permanent appointment of a joint secretary level officer of the state government at New Delhi Office.
“While smaller states could ask their resident commissioner to double up in the role, larger states need to put a dedicated officer who will work with the state minister during the periodic GST Council meetings,” an official connected with the developments said.
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However, the current meeting is not expected to finalize the GST rates for the GST regime, this time. “Nothing has been put on paper as drafts for a decision on the rates to take place,” the official said.
“We have received over 6,000 suggestions covering all aspects of the Bill. It does not matter how many of those are accepted. The process of examination of all of them has to be done,” the official said.
