5 senior babus to receive training on GST implementation

The Goods and Service Tax Bill is pending in Parliament, but the AAP government’s first team of five senior bureaucrats is all set to receive five-day extensive training on the implementation of the proposed legislation. These bureaucrats will be trained by senior Union government officers in Faridabad from Monday.

The training schedule for implementation of the GST Bill is being coordinated by the National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics and will have a three-level rollout. For the first level, five bureaucrats will be trained as master trainers by source trainers. For the second level, these master trainers will impart training to trainers, who in turn will be required to train field officers in the third level.

The training of the master trainers by source trainers will be planned in five weekly modules. The first two will be held in Faridabad in Haryana from July 11 and July 18. The remaining three modules will be organised from July 25 to 29 in Mumbai, August 1 to 5 in Bengaluru and August 8 to 12 in Kolkata.

The first set of the Delhi government officers, who will be trained as master trainers, are special commissioners Sonika Singh and Kapil Singh, additional commissioner Shailendra Singh Parihar and joint commissioners Anand Kumar Tiwari and Parvesh Ranjan Jha.

In a letter to VAT commissioner S.S. Yadav, the Academy’s additional director Rajesh Nandan Srivastava said the officers to be trained should be well-versed with the First Discussion Paper on Goods and Service Tax released by the empowered committee of state ministers in 2009. Response of the revenue department to the First Discussion Paper and Constitution (115th Amendment) Bill 2011 on GST among other issues related to the said subject.

Earlier, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia had said that his government was taking all necessary steps to implement the GST. He had told the empowered committee of finance ministers that Delhi has adopted Model 2 for implementation of IT Services under the Goods and Services Tax Network. “Delhi already has fully computerised DVAT system and is prepared for its integration with GSTN as soon as the new system is ready. I expect that the entire IT system which is being developed by GSTN for the Model 2 states, including dash board, reports, backend process, dealer integration module etc, will be ready well in time for smooth and swift transitions of GST.”

The AAP government’s consistent stand on the GST is that the state administration should have adequate financial and administrative autonomy to meet aspirations of people and ensure rapid development. The AAP government has been pleading that the revenue neutral rate should be estimated on a realistic basis. Mr Sisodia had earlier pointed out that since two committees had worked out difference in RNRs, a committee of officers from Centre and states be constituted under the co-convenorship of additional secretary (revenue) and member secretary (empowered committee) to deliberate upon the matter.

Mr Sisodia had also pointed out that as per Section 132 (power of Central/ state government to make rules), Rules are to be made on the recommendations of the GST Council. “Brining every amendment in the Rules to the council for its recommendation will make the entire process of making and amending rules very cumbersome and would lead to delays,” Mr Sisodia said.