
As soon as the Lok Sabha passed the historic GST Bills (all four supplementary Bills were cleared by the lower house), Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter tonight and hailed the passage of GST in the Lok Sabha. PM Modi posted this message to the nation, “Congratulations to all the countrymen over passage of the GST bills. New Year, New Law, New Bharat.” The tweet was in Hindi.
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Reacting with jubilation after the passage of the bill in the Lok Sabha, FM Arun Jaitley said, “With Lok Sabha having approved all four laws that Centre is supposed to legislate through Parliament, I think significant step forward has been taken. We are virtually seeing history in the making because we are now going to be transforming into a new system of indirect taxation.”
GST बिल पास होने पर सभी देशवासियों को बधाई | नया साल, नया कानून, नया भारत!
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 29, 2017
Earlier in the evening, after a marathon session that lasted around 8 hours in which the Opposition and the government sought to make some telling points against each the new pan-India tax law was passed and soon thereafter, the Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House till Wednesday 11 am. As things stand now, with the lower house clearing the four supplementary legislations, GST regime has come one step closer to be implemented on its July 1, 2017 implementation target. The four supplementary bills were the Central GST Bill, 2017; The Integrated GST Bill, 2017; The GST (Compensation to States) Bill, 2017; and The Union Territory GST Bill, 2017.
Finance Minister Arun Jailtey tweeted:
Congratulations to every trader, producer & consumer of goods & services in the country on the passage of historic GST Laws.
— Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) March 29, 2017
In the afternoon, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the GST, will usher in a uniform indirect tax regime in the country and this will ensure commodities turn “slightly cheaper”. The overall impact of the GST Bill, once it is implemented, will be on the GDP – it is expected to add as much as 2% to the country’s economic growth figures.
GST has been called the biggest reform in India’s tax laws since Independence. The new law will subsume central excise, service tax, VAT and other local levies to create a uniform market across India.