GST to be passed this session: Jayant Sinha

Amid stiff resistance from the opposition in Parliament, Union Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha, on Saturday expressed confidence that the bill would be passed in the ongoing monsoon session.

“After discussion with finance ministers from the states, we understand that  there is a broad-based consensus on the bill and we don’t expectation any opposition to it,” Sinha said to reporters on the sidelines of an event organised by the Bharat Chamber of Commerce.

The Modi government's attempt to secure parliamentary approval for the long pending bill hit a roadblock on Friday when finance Minister Arun Jaitley moved it for consideration in the Lok Sabha. MPs from parties like the Congress, Left parties, NCP staged a walk out protesting the government's decision to send it to a standing committee.

Sinha accepted that there were some implemenation issues but expected that those would not come in the way of the constitutional ammendment. " There are some implementation issues but we are confident we can work through those," Sinha said. A meeting of the GST council meeting has been scheduled in the first week of May in Trivandrum.

Sinha also said that the government has started paying the central government has agreed to pay the central sales tax (CST) to the states in three tranches of which the first tranche has already been released during the the end of the last fiscal. " We already released Rs 11,000 crore in the first tranche, the second one will be released in two installments in this fiscal while the last one will be paid next fiscal," he said. Several states have asked to be compensated for the abolition of CST.

When asked about the effect of deficient monsoon, Sinha said that the government was fully prepared to tackle the situation. "Even last year ,monsoon was 88 per cent of the long term average, despite that we were able to manage the overall situation quite well both in terms of supply of food items and inflation as well this year also we have our contingency plans ready," the minister said.

Meanwhile earlier, speaking at event of Srei Infrastrcuture, Sinha expressed his reservation over PPP projects. " PPP projects rely excessively on bank finance, so it has not been a good experience," he said.