Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan has been nominated as a member of a Group of Ministers (GoM) constituted by the GST Council to look into the system reforms.
Ajit Pawar, Deputy Chief Minister, Maharashtra, will be the convener. Manish Sisodia, Deputy Chief Minister, Delhi; Dushyant Chautala, Deputy Chief Minister, Haryana; Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath; Assam Finance Minister Ajanta Neog; Chhattisgarh Commerical Taxes Minister T.S. Singh Deo; and Odisha Finance Minister Niranjan Pujari are the other members.
The earlier GoMs on information technology challenges and revenue mobilisation have been subsumed under the newly constituted GoM.
It said the GoM would identify mechanisms for better coordination between the Central and State tax administration and the tax administration of different States and suggest timelines for the changes recommended.
Mr. Rajan wrote on Twitter that Chief Minister M.K. Stalin had asked him and Commercial Taxes Minister P. Moorthy to work on similar issues in the State. “Now, look forward to working with friends and colleagues to improve the process for all of India,” he said.
In an interview to a Tamil news channel on Sunday, he said there was a contradiction between what Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at the press conference on the GST compensation and what he heard had happened at the 45th GST Council meeting held in Lucknow on September 17. At the press conference, the Union Minister had said the compensation would not be extended beyond 2022 at any cost, he said.
“The meeting was attended by our Additional Chief Secretary, and some of my colleagues, who are the Finance Ministers from other States [such as] Kerala, Andhra, Telangana, Punjab, West Bengal and Delhi. I am talking to them on a regular basis,” he said. “The information I received from these people was that no decision was made on the issue and the options have been given, and the topic will be taken for discussion at the next meeting.”
“I hope there will be some clarity in the follow-up communications with the GST Council. Of course, communications and interactions will happen regularly, not just during the council meeting,” he said. The compensation issue was the last item (no. 18) on the third list of agendas, which was circulated by the GST Council at the last minute, he said.
