The J&K government is unlikely to meet the deadline of July 1 to implement the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime in the face of opposition from mainstream parties, traders and separatists.
Sources said the special session of the Assembly called by the PDP-BJP government on Saturday was “unlikely to take a final call immediately”.
A senior PDP leader told The Hindu that CM Mehbooba Mufti intended to take all the stakeholders, especially the legislators, on board and “will not hurry up enforcing GST”. He said one of the options before the government remained an all-party committee to “find means and ways to implement the GST”.
If the GST issue goes to an all-party committee, there is every likelihood that it will seek more time.
The registration of traders under the GST regime has also failed to take off.
Protests against GST
Kashmir-based traders have already called for a shutdown on Saturday.
A Hurriyat spokesman said several demonstrations were held after Friday prayers against National Investigating Agency (NIA) raids and implementation of GST against business community.
Separatist leaders, including Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, have described GST “a plot to cripple J&K’s trade and economy”.
Drabu defends GST
Defending GST, State Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu said, “A false bogey of dilution of the State’s fiscal autonomy has been raised by vested interests. Never before in the history of J&K has the extension of a Constitutional Amendment of the Constitution of India to J&K been taken to the State Assembly for deliberations.”
He asked the opposition parties “to come up with a constructive roadmap on how they would like to go about implementing the new tax regime while safeguarding J&K’s fiscal autonomy.”
If former finance minister and National Conference (NC) leader Abdul Rahim Rather had a blue print then what prevented him from placing it before the empowered committee of GST of which he was the chairman, asked Mr. Drabu.
