Jaitley hopeful of GST Bill in ensuing Budget session

After hitting the Congress wall in two successive Parliament sessions, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today exuded confidence that landmark GST Bill will be passed in the next session as numbers in the Rajya Sabha will tilt in favour of the new indirect tax regime.
"The next session is going to be extremely important. And half way through the next session, the numbers of the Upper House are also going to change. So I am reasonably optimistic, as far as the next session is concerned, that we may be able to push it through," Jaitley said.
Parliament's Budget session will start in last week of February.

Addressing the officer trainees of the Indian Revenue Service, he said there is virtually a consensus for GST among political parties and "everybody supports it".
"...Parliamentary obstructionism has prevented it from happening in the last two sessions".
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) that will subsume all indirect taxes like excise duty, service tax and sales tax into one uniform rate, is stuck in Rajya Sabha where main opposition Congress wants three changes.

Congress stalled the passage of the Constitution Amendment Bill in last two sessions, derailing government's plan to roll out GST from April 1, 2016.
Jaitley said the concept of GST was first conceived in 2006 and the Constitution Amendment Bill was first introduced in 2011, but the UPA government could not build a consensus with the states.

"The GST is already delayed. Ideally it should have come much earlier," he said, adding that the tax regime will render India into one big market, make tax evasion difficult, ensure seamless movement of goods and services and push up GDP.
Jaitley said the NDA Government after coming to power built broad consensus among the states and following that brought the Constitution Amendment Bill again in Parliament.
"I continue to discuss with the states and with all political groups, so that we can ensure its safe passage in the Upper House," he said.
The idea of GST was born in the earlier part of the last decade, he said. "Though people have been discussing this since the 1990s, radical idea of this kind takes time before a consensus can develop".

He said after the Constitution Amendment Bill is passed in Parliament, there are three more legislations - Central GST (CGST), State GST (SGST) and Integrated GST (IGST) - which are required to be passed.
Jaitley also complimented Rural Development Minister
Chaudhary Birender Singh for bringing in "transformation" in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
Schemes are "not cast in stone" and their modification is required with the passage of time, he said, adding that MGNREGA underwent change and new initiatives were taken to reach its benefits to people in a better way.
"As the Rural Development Minister has rightly said that a transformation has been brought in the implementation of this scheme. When a government scheme runs for many years, an attitude of indifference develops towards it. A kind of indifference towards it was growing by 2013-14 when the scheme has entered its seventh and eight years," Jaitley said.

He further said that although India has no control over fall in international commodity, mineral and oil prices as well as global slowdown, within the country there is a need to create one more engine of growth by giving funds to the rural sector.
"We should spend more on rural electrification, irrigation and roads to witness development of rural economy. The amount of funds we can put in these sectors, it would not only help improve the sector but also boost the economic growth of the country. This is the responsibility which we are undertaking through MGNREGA," he said.
Jaitley said there are political, social and economic arguments behind putting funds in rural sector when it is stressed. "The funds that we put in that will push the economic growth".

He said the Rural Development Ministry has worked on the scheme so that there is asset creation, employment generation, money is transferred directly to bank accounts to avoid pilferage. "He (Singh) has changed the format of MGNREGA, which has helped the poor," Jaitley said.
(Reopens FES 39)
Talking about political history of India, Jaitley said India made the best choice by going for Parliamentary democracy that resulted in stable governments barring one or two instances.
Besides unity and sovereignty, competitive and cooperative federalism has been the strength of the country, he said.
India, he said, has built three distinct institutions -- Election Commission, independent judicial system and a very professional army -- which helped it become a successful Parliamentary democracy.

Jaitley said democracy gets repeatedly tumbled in those countries where these three institutions lagged behind.
"Even though we had the second largest Muslim population, our population remained insulated from global trend," he said.
India, he said, had its own share of terror threats especially from the Left wing extremists. "... This should not be long before the system is able to tackle this," he said.