PM Modi at NITI Aayog meet: Consensus on GST will go down in history

With still two months left till the Goods and Services Tax (GST) roll out, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said consensus on the new tax regime will go down in history as a great illustration of cooperative federalism. Chairing the third Governing Council meeting of the NITI Aayog, the Prime Minister said GST reflects the spirit of “one nation, one aspiration, one determination”. The government is planning to implement GST from July 1.

At the meeting, PM Modi also said that vision of ‘New India’ can be realised only through combined efforts of all states and chief ministers. Further, he asked all chief ministers to carry forward the debate and discussion on conducting simultaneous elections across the country. He also called upon states to speed up capital expenditure and infrastructure creation.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal chose to



skip the meeting. Among the opposition ruled states, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami attended the meeting. Others who were present include Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti Sayeed and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, Suresh Prabhu, Prakash Javadekar, Rao Inderjit Singh and Smriti Irani also attended the meet.

The meeting of the council began at Rashtrapati Bhawan with the main agenda of discussing on the 15-year Vision Document to accelerate the country’s economic development. Earlier this month, President Pranab Mukherjee had given his assent to four key legislations on GST, which is touted as the biggest taxation reform since Independence.