‘Security’ points possible behind new GST Council meet venue

After asserting the subsequent Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council assembly to be held in Srinagar, the venue was abruptly modified on Saturday to Chandigarh. Security issues within the wake of current targetted killings in Kashmir are learnt to have been one of many fundamental issues for rescheduling the assembly’s venue, which might have seen participation of officers and ministers from 31 states/union territories and the Centre.

On Thursday, the Twitter deal with of the Office of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the dates for the GST Council assembly in Srinagar. “The 47th meeting of the GST Council will be held on June 28-29, 2022 (Tuesday & Wednesday) in Srinagar. @FinMinIndia @GST_Council @PIB_India,” it had mentioned.

On Saturday, the GST Council in a tweet introduced that the assembly will now be held at Chandigarh as an alternative of Srinagar. “The 47th meeting of the GST Council will be held on 28-29 June, 2022 (Tuesday and Wednesday) at Chandigarh instead of Srinagar,” it mentioned.

Though the official revised assembly discover doesn’t specify any purpose for the shift in venue, an official mentioned there have been some apprehensions about safety for ministers and officers converging in Srinagar for the assembly given the current spate of targetted killings. Queries despatched to the Finance Ministry on this concern by The Sunday Express didn’t elicit a response.

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The Kashmir Valley has witnessed at the least 16 targetted killings, together with police officers, academics and sarpanches, since this January. The episodes of targetted killings spiked after February 2021, when the son of the proprietor of Krishna Dhaba in Srinagar was shot inside his restaurant. On October 5, 2021, chemist ML Bindroo was killed in his store, adopted two days later by the killing of Supinder Kour, principal at Government Boys Higher Secondary School, Sangam, and Deepak Chand, trainer on the college, who had been gunned down after assailants checked id playing cards of the varsity workers. More lately, a Kashmiri Pandit worker of the Revenue Department of J&Ok, working beneath the PM rehabilitation bundle, was shot inside his workplace at Chadoora, Budgam, resulting in widespread protests by individuals from the neighborhood. A trainer from Samba, Rajni Bala, too lately grew to become sufferer of this spate of killings, whereas an off-duty policeman was discovered useless in paddy fields in south Kashmir’s Pulwama as lately as Saturday morning.

The forty seventh assembly of the GST Council comes at a time when some state governments are looking for extension of the GST compensation regime past June, when the five-year interval of the assured compensation scheme for income losses arising out of the July 2017 rollout of the oblique tax regime involves an finish. The Council had earlier agreed to increase the levy of compensation cess until 2026, however just for compensation of the borrowings made within the aftermath of the pandemic to supply compensation to states.

The Council can be anticipated to debate suggestions from a gaggle of ministers led by Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, which is predicted to suggest a 28 per cent tax charge on casinos, race programs and on-line gaming.

The Group of Ministers (GoM) constituted to overview the present charge slab construction beneath GST, will put together an interim report and can search an extension of its tenure within the upcoming GST Council assembly.

Discussions held up to now on GST charges, inverted obligation construction for sectors, besides textiles, and a few exemptions might be a part of the interim report however a consensus on a last report couldn’t be reached within the absence of an entire settlement throughout the GoM members on tweaking the tax slabs.