Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said the Centre in collaboration with states has planned to get the Constitutional Amendment Bill on GST passed during the current session of parliament.
The Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December last year.
"Today, we had a meeting of the empowered committee of the Finance Ministers, where ministers from 18 states were present. Some of the states were represented by their officials. This was the first meeting to be chaired by Shri K. M. Mani, the honourable finance minister of Kerala, who is the new chairperson of the empowered committee. And, the agenda was the roadmap for the goods and services tax," Jaitley told media persons after meeting his state counterparts.
Jaitley said there are working groups which are working on several issues that will arise in the run up to the goods and services tax implementation.
"There was a broad consensus that states are in support of goods and services tax. Some language corrections etc. were suggested by some of the states and of course states have been raising some of their state specific concerns. A number of them are outside the GST but some relatable to that," Jaitley added.
"And in view of almost near unanimous support that various states have because it is going to be a win-win situation for all. We will go ahead with the constitution amendment in the current session of Parliament," he added.
Jaitley said that thereafter, there are going to be three legislations which the empowered committee would work on.
"We are trying our best to work to the endeavour where with the support of the IT backbone which is being created, we try and maintain the target date of April 1st, 2016. We are, as of today, very optimistic about the target date," Jaitley said.
"The positive about today's meeting that the states are quite determined and they see obvious benefits of the GST. The concerns cut across party lines and it is a genuine relationship between the Centre and the State and the devolution of the sharing of taxes which is the issue," he added.
He further clarified that in today's meeting the approach of the states and the Centre is converging in the same direction.
"The Bill has already been introduced. I will be giving the notice for it to be taken up for the discussion in the Lok Sabha. It is a constitutional amendment and needs support of 2/3rd members of the both the houses," he added.
