The State Assembly unanimously passed the Mahar-
ashtra Goods and Services Tax Bill, 2017 on Monday, the last day of a three-day special session of the legislature.
The State legislative Council had passed the Bill on Sunday, while the lower house passed the Bill on Monday after deliberations lasting for two days.
Thanking the members of all political parties for passing the Maharashtra GST Bill, 2017 unanimously, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the new law would prove to be as beneficial as VAT had proved to be for the State in the past.
“Twelve to 13 Assemblies across the country have so far passed the GST Bill and all of them passed the Bill within three to four hours or a maximum of one day, whereas Maharashtra Assembly deliberated at length on the main GST legislation and two related Bills for three days before passing the main State GST bill. The only difference between other States and Maharashtra is that we passed one additional Bill --the Maharashtra Goods and Service (compensation to local bodies) Act, 2017, that seeks to compensate 27 municipal corporations in the State for their revenue loss once the GST regime is introduced,” Fadnavis said.
Alluding to the concerns expressed by members during the debate on the GST Bill on the possible adverse impact of the new law on the people, Fadnavis said “Even when the law relating VAT was to be passed in this House, members had expressed similar concern. Then Finance Minister Jayant Patil had allayed the members’ concerns and expressed optimism that the VAT regime would prove to be beneficial for the State. We realised it later, the VAT indeed proved to be beneficial for the State.”
Expressing confidence that GST law would come in handy in mobilising revenue for the State in a big way in the coming years, the CM said “I am confident that like VAT, GST will also prove to be beneficial for the State. like our Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said, Maharashtra will have to depend on compensation for one or two years. Because of GST, our State economy will get expanded.”