The Chhattisgarh legislative Assembly passed the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill by voice vote at a special daylong session held here on Friday. The Bill was introduced in the House by Commercial Tax Minister Amar Agrawal.
In his address to the House, Chief Minister Raman Singh said that the GST, in the direction of creating a financial revolution in the country, is a great step.
He also said that in 2002 former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had formed the Empowered Committee for bringing about reform in the indirect tax system by laying foundation of ‘Value Added Tax’ (VAT).
Singh said that VAT was introduced in 2005; while in 2004, the Central Government had constituted the Kelkar Committee and in that very same year, recommendations were made for introducing GST following which talks were started. He said that the process of passing GST bill is going on in all the States of the country.
Singh said that the GST regime will come into effect from July 2017. He added that the GST Council has all the 29 States and two Union Territories as members including the Central Government.
The GST regime will integrate 32 types of taxes applicable in various States and the Centre, the Chief Minister stated. Currently there are eight types of Central taxes such as Excise duty, Service Tax, Surcharge etc., and States charge VAT, CST, Entry Tax and Entertainment Tax separately, he said.