Page 21 - NIS English 01-15 July,2023

6 Years of GST Cover Story

Central Hall of Parliament House: This is a grand picture of the historic moment

when GST was launched in the country at midnight of June 30-July 1, 2017

CST as a first step towards implementing a single
tax system. In exchange for abolishing CST,
states were promised compensation for a few
years. The states did the same, but the promise
of compensation in lieu of CST was not fulfilled.
However, when Arun Jaitley took over as Union
Finance Minister in May 2014, all states told him Today, there is a government in
that GST would not be discussed until the backlog the country that is ready to take
compensation for CST was received. After winning the biggest risk in the interest of
the trust of the state governments, the new the nation. GST got stuck for so
government immediately paid the compensation, many years because those who
and the GST discussion began. were in the government earlier
The second reason was the states' concern could not muster the courage to
that they would lose revenue as a result of the full take political risks. We not only im-
implementation of GST. The question in such a
situation was how the states would be compensated plemented GST, but today we are
for their losses. Their demand appeared justified, witnessing record GST collection.
but no solution was found earlier. Particularly
concerned were the manufacturing states of Tamil - Narendra Modi, Prime Minister
Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Karnataka. They
stated unequivocally, "No compensation, no GST."

New India Samachar July 1-15, 2023 19