A better GST system is possible only with a different government, Minister for Information Technology and Digital Services, Palanivel Thiagarajan, said in Coimbatore on Monday.
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Speaking at a meeting organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)- Coimbatore, he said the GST mechanism was “profoundly bad” from the beginning as it was rushed to implementation. There should be an independent secretariat for GST and unless there was a different government, there would not be a better GST, he said.
On expansion of the Coimbatore airport, he said there were two reasons for the delay - the Central government did not want to promote airports in Tamil Nadu as it wanted to promote them in States such as Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh and the other was related to land.
Regarding electoral bonds, Mr. Palanivel Thiagarajan said it was antithetical to the core notion of democracy because of its design of anonymity.
He also said he feared for the future of democracy as the independence of institutions were compromised, the role of legislators had eroded, and the functioning of the administration had deteriorated. A government should provide a decent quality of life, ensure there was a level playing field so that competition was based only on talent, innovation, and work ethics, and the State should be properly funded. There should also be a high level of communal harmony, he said.