After 11 months of inception, SEZ Rules yet not aligned with GST laws

The commerce ministry should now wake up and suitably amend the SEZ laws

It is almost 11 months since the Goods and Services Tax (GST) came into being. Yet, the necessary consequential changes have not been made in the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Act, 2005, or the SEZ Rules, 2006.

There is no mention of GST in either. References to the repealed laws for service tax, purchase tax, etc, continue in the SEZ laws. For example,  Section 26 (e) of the SEZ Act still says every developer and entrepreneur shall be entitled to exemption from service tax under Chapter V of the Finance Act, 1994 (32 of 1994) on taxable services provided to a