The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the acquisition of privately-held equity in the GST Network (GSTN), which will make the not-for-profit company 100% government-owned. This proposal was approved by the GST Council earlier this year.
After the acquisition, the central and state governments would hold 50% each of the company, the government said in a statement. The GSTN board will now comprise of 11 directors: Three each from the the Centre and the states, three independents, along with one chairman and a chief executive officer.
GSTN provides the IT backbone to the new indirect tax regime. Currently, 51% shares are held by five private financial institutions — HDFC, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, NSE Strategic Investment Co and LIC Housing Finance. The remaining is split equally between the Centre and states.
Government officials said that the decision was based on the rationale that a vast amount of GST-related data should be completely under the government’s supervision, as it is a repository of sensitive information of over 1 crore taxpayers.
