Revolutionary GST bill will ensure free movement of goods across the country: Jaitley

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday called the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill revolutionary, saying it will benefit all with the free movement of goods across the country.

"We are keeping two standard rates of 12 percent and 18 percent and provided for a cess for five years to fund compensation," said Jaitley while announcing usage of a cess on luxury, sin goods for GST compensation.

"Aim of GST Council is to decide everything with consensus," said Jaitley.

"CGST Law shall apply to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir," he said while mentioning that the GST Council met 12 times till date.

He further said that GST will ensure one single tax and will ensure free movement of goods across country.

"The revised draft of the Model GST Law, which was released in the public domain in November 2016, has been split into CGST, SGST and UTGST Bills apart from IGST Bill. The draft of the Model GST Law underwent further changes before being introduced in the Parliament," he added.

Earlier, the bills introduced in Lok Sabha included Central GST (CGST), Integrated GST (IGST), Union Territory GST (UTGST) and the Bill for Compensation to States, which were cleared by the GST Council.

The Lok Sabha on Wednesday began discussion on all the four GST-related bills after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tabled the bills on Monday, briefed the BJP MPs about GST's impact at the party's parliamentary board meeting on Tuesday.

The Central GST, Integrated GST, Union Territory GST and the Compensation Law will be discussed in the House for around six hours. The BJP is hoping to build consensus and roll-out the GST by July 1.