Government considering second part of monsoon session to pass GST Bill
To rescue the country's biggest-ever tax reform, the government is considering reconvening Parliament to make another attempt to pass the Goods and National Sales Tax or GST.
"The tax reform is crucial for the economy and we are making every effort to build consensus," said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu after meeting with Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the opposition Congress in the Lok Sabha.
The GST -which creates a single national sales tax to replace a matrix of unwieldy and complicated levies by the states and central government - was stalled in the Rajya Sabha or Upper House last month. Unless it is cleared urgently by Parliament, the reform will not meet an April rollout deadline set by the government. A delay would further dent investor confidence and squander what experts see as an easy opportunity to kickstart a lethargic economy.
The Congress has sucked the wind from the sails of the government's ambitious reforms, successfully managing to depict new rules to acquire farmland as pro-industry and anti-farmer, and by obstructing parliament so that GST could not be debated or cleared. The Congress says it won't let Parliament function till the PM sacks three senior colleagues for alleged impropriety.
The original version of the GST was drafted by the Congress when it was in power, and the party wants changes to the draft presented by the government. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the GST could add up to 2 percentage points to the growth of Asia's third-largest economy.
The monsoon session of Parliament was adjourned on the 13th, but the government left open the option to reconvene it, hoping to build support for the GST. However, an ordinance or executive order that puts the controversial new land acquisition rules into effect expires on August 31st and cannot be replaced by a new one if Parliament is in session. Since December, the PM has used three such ordinances for the land reforms.