Congress should shed its ego, help pass GST bill: Prasad

Appealing the Congress to shed its "ego", Union Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today said that the opposition should facilitate passage of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill in the national interest.
"National interest should be above the political ego. I appeal to Congress that it should give up the ego so that GST bill gets cleared in the Parliament," he said here.
After losing the general elections, Congress was putting up impractical conditions on GST and some of these conditions, if accepted, would infringe on the states' rights, he said.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had said in Mumbai two days ago that if the NDA government accepted its three conditions, the GST bill can be passed quickly.

Prasad, however, said the Congress had not yet come to terms with its defeat in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, or it perhaps believed it would never come to power again.
The senior BJP leader said that one should wait for the Supreme Court's decision on Ram temple at Ayodhya, but a large section of the society is of the view that the issue should be sorted out through consensus.

On the call drop issue, Prasad pointed out that the private telecom companies set up 25,000 towers in the last three months following the government's tough stand. The state-run BSNL had put up many towers to improve its network in the last two years.

On NDA government's stand on the net neutrality, Prasad said there were different views on it world-over, and before taking a policy decision the government was waiting for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's report.
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After 25,000 samples during last 30 years, the World Health Organisation report stated that radiation due to mobile tower was not harmful for health, he clarified.
The mobile consumer base world over was 705 crore which included 102 crore in India itself, he said wondering if it was so, why no complaint ever came from nations like Japan, Germany, UK, European nations, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Such reports are unfortunate, he reiterated.
About the postal department, the Minister said 60 new ATMs would be installed in post offices and 2,600 micro-ATMs in Jharkhand.
Prasad said the government has a plan to provide Electronic Sector Design Manufacturing training to 15,000 SC/ST youths.