With the monsoon session of Parliament to set off next week, the Government is quite hopeful of pushing the passage of the long pending Goods and Services Bill (GST) in the Rajya Sabha, where it lacks the numbers, as the new Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar has already initiated telephonic dialogues with leader of the Opposition in the Upper House Ghulam Nabi Azad and Deputy leader of Congress in the House Anand Sharma.
Formal talks are likely to take place shortly to work out a consensus without “trial of strength”, sources said, claiming that there seems to be good tuning developing between the Government and the main Opposition on the issue. Congress is mainly demanding a constitutional cap on the GST rate which is, so far, not acceptable to the Centre.
Congress also wants clarification from the Government on taxability of various goods like petroleum, alcohol, tobacco and electricity.
Sharma denied that the Congress was against the bill. He said the party is the author of the bill and its only concern is that it should be “meaningful and substantive”.
The Government, he said, needs to “ring fence” the GST rate so as not to burden the common man. “Ball is in their court”, said the Congress leader.
Besides, government should be clarifying whether the GST would subsume various cesses including the Swachh Bharat cess, he said.
The government plans to push the Constitution Amendment bill in Rajya Sabha for rollout of GST in the monsoon session beginning July 18. The bill was approved by lok Sabha earlier.
The Congress leader is of view that his leadership would take a “considered view”, once it formally hears from the government.
On its part, the government would like to pass the bill, touted as one of the big ticket economic reforms post-independent India , without a trial of strength as the main opposition accuses the former of adopting “ a confrontationist approach”.