Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman called Goods and Services Tax (GST) the "most historic" reform in India. The indirect tax regime - which was launched in 2016 - has been gradually maturing, Nirmala Sitharaman said during her Budget speech in Parliament. She also took the opportunity to praise her predecessor, Arun Jaitley, as the 'architect of GST'.
In an attempt to further streamline the GST filing process, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday that a simplified return format for GST is being introduced from April 2020. The finance minister emphasized in her second Budget presentation that GST has resulted in gains of Rs 1 lakh crore to consumers, removed inspector raj and helped the transport sector.
"The average household saves 4 per cent in monthly expense after the rollout of GST," Sitharaman said, adding that Budget for 2020-21 aims to fulfil aspirations of people.
Nirmala Sitharaman also highlighted the fact that India is now the fifth largest economy in the world.
The Union Budget 2020-21 comes at a time when the economy is staring at a more than 11-year low annual expansion rate and thousands of job cuts amid weakness across sectors. GDP growth rate has been spiralling downwards in the last five quarters.
The Economic Survey, released a day ahead of the Union Budget, had pegged gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 5 per cent in the current financial year, which it said would pick up to 6-6.5 per cent in financial year ending March 2021.