Cabinet Secretary reviews GST, asks departments to keep a lid on price rise
New
Delhi: Three days into GST regime, Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha today
asked all ministries and departments to ensure that their is no shortage
of goods and prices of essential items are kept under check.
Sinha
held a review meeting to take stock of situation post implementation of
the new tax regime, and departments have been asked to ensure that
retailers, dealers/shopkeepers should display a price list under GST of
items sold by them.
“Government has asked all the departments to
ensure that their is no shortage of products and consumer items in order
to keep a check on prices. Special emphasis was laid on to keep prices
of essential commodities under check,” a finance ministry statement
said.
Sinha stressed that benefits of GST should be passed on to consumers, which would in turn also keep inflation under control.
“Various
machines used by dealers, retailers for computerized billing should be
calibrated at the earliest as per the new GST rates,” he added.
A
four tier Goods and Services Tax (GST) - 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent - has
been rolled out from July 1. Essential items like salt, unpacked food
grains, cereals have been kept a zero rated to ensure that there is no
price rise.
Sinha also asked departments to be ready to deal with queries of their stakeholders.
“In
order to do so, officers of every ministry should equip themselves and
have full knowledge of the details relating to GST concerning their
respective Ministry,” he said.
A similar review meeting will be held every week to keep a close watch on GST rollout.
Sinha
has also asked all the departments/ministry to provide all the relevant
information relating to GST concerning their ministry/department,
including GST rates on their respective websites.
He asked the
secretaries to get more detailed feedback and in-depth details of the
field from their respective stakeholders, officers and consumers at
large after GST implementation.
The officers should be fully ready to deal with it so that there is quick response to any situation, the statement said.
Sinha
asked them to launch campaigns to make their stakeholders and consumers
fully aware about GST related matters concerning their respective
ministry/department.
Apart from Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia,
the 20 secretaries, including from textile, consumer affairs, food
processing, railways, MSME, rural development, tourism, fertiliser,
pharma, and financial services attended the meeting. CBEC officials were
present in the meeting.
On June 20, Sinha had taken GST
preparedness meeting with 30 ministries and departments and had asked
the secretaries to organise outreach meetings and publicity campaigns
through their departments and PSUs for explaining the provisions of new
law and rules to their stakeholders.
The finance ministry had
yesterday said that the two days of GST rollout has passed “without any
major problems being reported” from the field offices.
“The
Revenue Department has got encouraging reports from the roadside dhabas
and big restaurants as well as from kirana shops to departmental stores
which, in turn, have started getting acclimatised to the new tax
system,” it had said.
The biggest indirect tax since Independence,
GST removes at least 17 different taxes and transforms India into a
single market for seamless movement of goods and services.
PTI
