The government is not considering extending the rollout date for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) past July 1, and the GST Network is almost ready for that deadline, GST Network CEO Prakash Kumar said.
Mr. Kumar also added that the GST Network, the company behind the IT backbone of the new tax regime, had received registrations from 60.5 lakh out of the 83 lakh tax payers eligible to be on the network.
“The date for GST is firmed up, and there should not be any confusion anywhere about that,” Mr. Kumar said while speaking at a GST Readiness Session. “There is no chance of it being extended past July 1. Out of a scale of 10, I would say our readiness right now is 8-9,” he said.
“The registration aspect of the portal was ready in November,” he added. “We started it in a phased manner and 60.5 lakh have been registered out of 83 lakh. If you don’t enrol, then the details of the authorised signatory will not be added to the Network, which means those companies will not be able to do any transactions on the portal.”
Regarding concerns that the GST Network — of which the government owns 49% and private companies own 51% — would face the moral hazard of sensitive private data being used for private purposes, Mr. Kumar said that the structure of the board would prevent this.
“The 49% government holding is divided along the lines of 24.5% Centre and 24.5% states and UTs,” he said. “The 51% is divided between five companies.
“The 24.5% of the states and the Centre have three board members each, and the 51% private companies have three board members. And nothing can happen without the decision of the directors,” Mr. Kumar said.
He also added that the IT infrastructure of the network for the unified tax regime was capable of handling even the peak traffic witnessed during the last couple of days before the filing deadline.
