Govt appoints monitors to oversee GST's implementation in NE

Senior IAS officers working with the Centre were today appointed as monitors to oversee the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in north eastern states.
Nikunj Kumar Srivastava and Vijayendra have been allocated various districts of Assam. Srivastava is working in the Commerce Ministry and Vijayendra with the Department of Defence Production here.
Manish Thakur, Joint Secretary in the Defence Ministry, has been put in charge of 11 districts of Arunachal Pradesh, according to an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
Senior bureaucrats Santosh Kumar Mall and Bharat Harbanslal Khera have been given the charge of select districts of Tripura and Mizoram respectively.

K Moses Chalai and Rupinder Singh have been allocated districts of Manipur and Nagaland respectively.
These officers will monitor the implementation of GST including registration of traders in the allocated districts.

They will obtain feedback from consumer associations, individual consumers, business associations, district administration etc. On a daily basis.
The officers will also activate and utilise channels of feedback such as call centres, web portals, video conferences, social media etc.
The senior officers will monitor calibration of billing software by traders, with special focus on accounting and billing systems of public sector undertakings.
They will have to monitor availability of essential commodities and retail price trends. Specific instances of price rises have to be reported in real time to consumer affairs and revenue departments.

The officers have been asked to report sector-specific tax rate related issues to the revenue department.