Maharashtra legislature nod to GST bill

Mumbai, May 22 (IANS) Both houses of the Maharashtra legislature on Monday unanimously passed the State Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill, paving the way for the measure's roll-out in the state from July 1, along with the rest of India.

The development came this evening after hectic deliberations in the legislative assembly and council at a three-day special session of the state legislature for passing the GST Bill.

"All political parties had unanimity over the GST Bill. Today, this supreme house has unanimously passed this bill. I thank the House for this," said Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

He termed the development as "a historic day" for the legislature and said now the country is a step closer to One Nation-One Tax regime even as ruling coalition Bharatiya Janta Party and Shiv Sena legislators celebrated by distributing sweets and hugging each other.

Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil however said that "the full credit for the GST Bill goes to the Congress which had first introduced it during the UPA regime".

"At that time, then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi had opposed it tooth-and-nail. Ironically, it's the BJP government under Modi which has now passed passed the GST Bill. Hence the credit for GST goes to the Congress, not the BJP," he told media persons.

The assembly witnessed hectic discussions before ratification of the three related GST bills, including the State Goods and Services Tax Bill, another to compensate the local authorities and the third to repeal the existing law and replace them with GST with effect from July 1.

Several prominent leaders including Vikhe-Patil, Leader of Opposition in Council Dhananjay Munde, senior leaders from Congress and Nationalist Congress Party like former Chief Minister Narayan Rane, Jayant Patil and others participated in the heated debates.

Assuring that the GST would not hamper financial autonomy of local bodies, Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said the new tax regime would help strengthen Maharashtra's economy and eliminate the "tax terrorism" being encountered by the people.

He said the government has accepted responsibility to compensate the local bodies for five years for the expected loss of revenue due to abolition of octroi and local body taxes due to GST.

However, Mungantiwar said the state's economy was strong enough to adopt GST and would not require compensation from the Central government for revenue losses after two years.

He pointed that 107 nations around the world have implemented GST, including many developed countries and their economies have flourished.

Mungantiwar said that around 5,000 staffers of the Finance Department have already been trained for work related to GST implementation and another 6,000 will be trained in the coming weeks.