The State Cabinet on Tuesday decided to convene a special one-day session of the State Assembly on September 1 for ratification of the Constitutional Amendment Bill (GST), recently passed in lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
“Goods and Services Tax (GST) is an important milestone in the reforms of indirect taxes. The Odisha Government is in favour of it. As per the request of the lok Sabha Secretary, the Bill requires to be ratified by State legislatures,” said Chief Secretary AP Padhi after the meeting held under chairmanship of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here.
He further informed that the Monsoon Session would begin from September 21 instead of September 7.
Though the Chief Secretary didn’t cite reasons for deferment of the session, the decision was believed to have been taken for the Nuakhai festival of western Odisha, which falls on September 6.
Earlier in the day, leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra had written to Speaker Niranjan Pujari and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to postpone the session by a day or two for the festival.