Imphal, May 5: Part 2 of the first session of the 11th Manipur Legislative Assembly adjourned sine die today. On the last day of the 2 day sitting, the house passed the Manipur Goods and Service Tax (GST) Bill, 2017.
Even though both the opposition and the ruling have no difference to the passing of the GST Bill, hectic discussion was witnessed among the members of both the opposition and ruling. Apprehension on the impact of the Bill to the small time weavers and its feasibilities to the state of Manipur were the concerns of the Opposition Party.
Deputy Chief Minister Y Joykumar, who is also in charge of Finance, clarifying doubts of the opposition bench, the GST Bill will give more advantage to consumer states like Manipur, where there are limited resources.
“Consumer state will have quantum jump in revenue with the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax”, The Finance Minister said.
He further added that there is no need for any apprehension of small time handloom weavers as the introduction of the tax will have no impact to their business as GST can be imposed to only entrepreneur whose annual turnover is over rupees 10 lakhs.
Deliberating on how the GST will work, Yumanm Joykumar said that the Bill has been passed by both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha after thorough discussion for the welfare of the people of the nation. He said the Bill is passed on the spirit of one nation on tax, so that there is no variation in prices of essential commodities.
Clarifying to doubts of some of the members, the Deputy Chief Minister, who is also incharge of Finance said that GST is not for increase of price of commodities but is to put uniformity to the prices of each commodity across the nation.
Earlier, treasury bench member, P Sharatchandra had stated that Center alone cannot fix the GST as it has to be decided by a Council consisting of Union Finance Minister as the Chairman and Finance Ministers of each state as members.
While elaborating on how the GST will benefit the state like Manipur, Yumnam Joykumar said that products which are supposed to be consumed by the state will be imposed State Goods Service Tax and the center will impose Central GST. If in case the goods transaction is between states then Integrated GST will be applied.
On the application of GST to Fermented fish (Ngari) favorite and most popular food item of Manipur, Joykumar said that as the raw material for making the fermented fish comes from outside the state there is no other option however, tax has been reduced to 5% from 12% after hectic argument on the interest of the Manipuri people.
On being asked about the benefit of the state with the GST, Chief Minister N Biren Singh, who is also the leader of the house said that state revenue is expected to raise from Rs. 100 crores to 150 crores if GST come into force.
As of now 4500 entrepreneurs/ retailers have registered and more will do in the coming days, the Chief Minister added.
