Government ready to discuss GST with opposition

Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said the government was open to discussing changes in the GST Bill with the Congress but urged the main Opposition party to reconsider its suggestions as some of them could “damage” the system much more than they would benefit it.

Mr Jaitley also warned that the ISIS’ activities could impact the world economy as more resources would be diverted towards security measures.

Mr Jaitley said he would urge the Congress to reconsider its position. “We are reaching out to them, we are willing to discuss with them because some of these suggestions may not necessarily be in the larger interest of the GST structure,” he said at the Assocham AGM.

He pointed out that those stalling reforms should realise that the space for obsolete thinking is shrinking.

“The wisdom which dawned on my friends in the Congress party had not dawned on them when Pranab Mukherjee (as finance minister) introduced the GST (in 2011). It did not dawn on them when (the then FM) P. Chidambaram accepted the standing committee recommendations, but to come out with the preposterous suggestion that tariff must be mentioned in the Constitution document so that in a given exigency, if tariff has to be altered, you need a two-third majority in both Houses of Parliament and it has to go to each of the states,” he said.

Mr Jaitley said it would be “extremely unfair” to the country “if we try to impose in the name of political compromise a GST with a defective architecture”.