Srinagar: The entire Opposition is up in arms to corner coalition PDP-BJP government on Goods and Services Tax (GST) in Legislative Council (LC) and Legislative Assembly (LA) in the state, where a clear divide is witnessed between traders from Kashmir and Jammu on the issue.
Jammu and Kashmir missed the GST bus, when it was rolled out from mid-night July 1 in the entire country by President Parnab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narender Modi from Parliament, as consensus could not be built on implementation of the tax regime in the state.
However, Speaker LA Kavinder Gupta and Haji Anayat Ali chairman LC have summoned special four-day session of both the Houses from tomorrow to discuss and pass GST bill.
Earlier, the Governor N N Vohra had called one-day special session of both the Houses on June 17 which ended without any discussion on GST and was adjourned sine die after obituary reference as agreed at Business Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting.
The BAC took the decision after government constituted an All Party Consultative Group (APCG) to discuss and bring some consensus on the issue before implementation the GST in the state. But, the government failed to break the ice over the issue in the APCG meeting held here on June 29.
The opposition, including NC, Congress and CPI(M), are opposing implementation of GST in its current form, alleging that it will erode the financial and political autonomy of the state.
“NC will oppose the implementation of GST till safeguards are not made to the fiscal autonomy and special status of the State guaranteed under Article 370,” senior NC leader and former state finance minister Abdul Rahim Rather said yesterday during a press conference here.
Mr Rather yesterday reiterated his idea of an alternate upward devolution of taxes from J&K to centre instead of GST.
Rejecting Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu’s observation that constitutional changes will be required to implement upward devolution of tax, he said no change is required to be made in the state constitution, but two articles in the Indian Constitution needs to be amended.
“The taxes which we (state) will collect — both state share and centre share — will go consolidated fund. In order to take our state share from that consolidated fund, we in any case have to make a law every year. So if we receive both state share and centre share in consolidated fund, we (government) will make a law every year and handover the centre’s share to it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Congress has maintained that it is not against GST in principle, but demanded safeguards before implementation of the tax regime in the state. Congress also accused the government of creating confusion over implementation of GST, alleging that the trade bodies in the entire state were in dilemma because of no clear cut explanation from the current regime.
Lone CPI (M) MLA Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, opposing the GST in its current form, said that the applicability of Constitutional amendment ie 101 has wide legal and political ramification for the state.
Warning that if GST was implemented without taking opposition parties and people into confidence, he said it will not be acceptable to anyone in the state.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu has reiterated that sufficient safeguards have been put in place not only to protect the interests, but also the special status of the state.
Dr Drabu said that government is trying to build consensus over implementation of GST in Jammu and Kashmir keeping in view the fragile nature of the situation in the valley.
“The difference between J&K and other states is very specific in terms of powers to tax. We (J&K) draws powers to tax from Section 5 of J&K Constitution while as other states draw from Article 247-246 of Constitution of India. All the powers that we have will become enabling provisions and we will not compromise on section 5 or Article 370 even by inference,” Dr Drabu said.
