Dhumal hails slashing of GST rates

Senior BJP leader Prem Kumar Dhumal today hailed the GST Council's decision to lower the rates on 27 items and providing concessions to the business community.
However, the Leader of Opposition in Himachal Pradesh Assembly rejected the development model of Congress-led government in the state and said that it was not "acceptable".
The concessions given in GST rates would go a long way in ending the "suffering" of the business community and the buyers will also benefit, he told reporters here.
The BJP on returning to power would extend all help and relief to the business community along with others, the former chief minister said.

Dhumal dubbed the Himachal model of development, which was appreciated by AICC Vice President Rahul Gandhi during a rally at Mandi, as "anti-people" and thereby unacceptable to the masses.
He said that Gujarat model of development had been appreciated throughout the world and rejection of it bythe Congress has proved that it never believed in real development.

Dhumal claimed that Mandi rally of the Congress failed to evoke much response and in fact it was a "big failure".
He said that even by managing support from the official agencies, the crowd in rally was not more than 15,000.
He said the Congress would face defeat in the upcoming state Assembly elections as people were disenchanted with its working and wants to bring the BJP back to power in state.

Three months after the rollout of the new indirect tax regime, the GST Council yesterday made sweeping changes to give relief to small and medium businesses on filing and payment of taxes, eased rules for exporters and cut tax rates on more than two dozen items.
Businesses with annual turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crore, which constitute 90 per cent of the taxpayer base but pay only 5-6 per cent of total tax, have been allowed to file quarterly income returns and pay tax instead of the current provision of monthly filings.