New GST panel chairman in a few days: Arun Jaitley

The Empow­ered Com­mit­tee of State Finance Min­is­ters will have its new chair­man by con­sen­sus in the few days as the Cen­tre gets ready to take up the GST Bill for con­sid­er­a­tion and pas­sage in the next leg of Bud­get ses­sion begin­ning April 20.

The Empow­ered Com­mit­tee, which met today, could not take a deci­sion on new Chairman.

We had a meet­ing with the (state) Finance Min­is­ters who were here… By con­sen­sus we will have the new Chair­man of the Empow­ered Com­mit­tee in the next few days,” Union Finance Min­is­ter Arun Jait­ley said after a meet­ing with the state FMs here.

“It is agreed that we are going ahead with our Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment Bill in the sec­ond part of the Bud­get ses­sion,” Jait­ley said.

The Goods and Ser­vices Tax (GST) is pro­posed to be rolled out from April 1, 2016.

Although state Finance Min­is­ters want­ed Jait­ley to nom­i­nate the new Chair­man of the empow­ered com­mit­tee, it was decid­ed that the head of the pan­el should be select­ed by the Union Finance Min­is­ter on the basis of consensus.

“Since a large num­ber of Finance Min­is­ter are busy with their own bud­get ses­sions … we need to con­sult each one of them before we take a deci­sion,” Jait­ley told reporters here.

The empow­ered com­mit­tee chair­man’s post fell vacant after Abdul Rahim Rather, the for­mer finance min­is­ter of Jam­mu & Kash­mir, quit fol­low­ing defeat of the Nation­al Con­fer­ence in Jam­mu and Kash­mir assem­bly polls in December.

The Chair­man of the Empow­ered Com­mit­tee has gen­er­al­ly been from an oppo­si­tion ruled state.

The first leg of the Bud­get ses­sion of Par­lia­ment end­ed today. It will resume after a month long recess on April 20.

Gujarat Finance Min­is­ter Saurabh Patel said there was no dis­cus­sion on names, but it was unan­i­mous­ly agreed that Jait­ley should decide the new Chairman.

Del­hi Deputy Chief Min­is­ter and Finance Min­is­ter Man­ish Siso­dia said Chair­man should be one “who could devote time, trav­el exten­sive­ly and have experience”.

Finance Min­is­ters of West Ben­gal, Ker­ala, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Assam, Chhat­tis­garh, Mad­hya Pradesh were among those who attend­ed today’s meeting.

Rev­enue Sec­re­tary Shak­tikan­ta Das said it was not yet decid­ed if anoth­er meet­ing would be con­vened or Chair­man would be elect­ed through con­sul­ta­tions with state min­is­ters individually.

In Decem­ber 2014, gov­ern­ment intro­duced the long-pend­ing GST Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment Bill in the Lok Sab­ha for roll-out of the new indi­rect regime from April 2016 sub­sum­ing var­i­ous levies like entry tax and octroi.

Ear­li­er this week, the Union Cab­i­net approved com­pen­sa­tion to states for their rev­enue loss on account of phas­ing out of Cen­tral Sales Tax (CST). In cur­rent fis­cal, Rs 11,000 crore would be giv­en and the remain­ing amount in the sub­se­quent two finan­cial years.