Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who has been highlighting the States’ concerns over the long-pending Goods and Services Tax Bill, expressed the hope that a consensus on the proposed tax regime would be reached by next year.
“Consensus will have to be built on this … we have a federal structure … it’s not like the Centre will decide on something [like this] unilaterally,” Mr. Chouhan told The Hindu on Wednesday.
Mr. Chouhan was here to woo investors for next month’s Global Investors Summit in Indore. “We were never against GST … we were against the form in which it came to us,” he said.
The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister said the Constitution had clear provisions on separation of powers between the Centre and the States on the distribution of tax revenue. “Past experiences regarding compensation have been very bad … we would keep running after the Centre and they wouldn’t compensate us. The rights of the States need to be protected … everything can’t just rest with the Centre,” he said adding “the Finance Minister [Arun Jaitley] has heard us out and assured us that our concerns will be addressed.”
Mr. Chouhan said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mr. Jaitley had maintained a “very positive view” to the suggestions made by Madhya Pradesh. “Roadblocks are being cleared … I believe a consensus will be reached by next year,” he said.
However, the State government officials were more candid. “What eventually will emerge, will be more of a compromise and less of a consensus,” a State government official told The Hindu.
“The truth is that they [Centre] have said it [GST] has to be implemented and so we have no option but to play along,” he said.
