STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: Finance Minister, Haseeb Drabu on Saturday called on Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Dr Jitendra Singh and held meeting to discuss GST implementation in the Jammu and Kashmir State as well as the contours of the tax structure.
Dr Jitendra complimented Drabu for the smooth roll-out of GST in Jammu and Kashmir and appreciated the stand of the State Government to go ahead with a reform which was of benefit to the common masses.
Notwithstanding all other constraints or considerations, he said, in today’s close-knit world, it is not fair to deprive the people from any region of the enormous benefits of any reform that is being availed by their counterparts elsewhere.
Dr Singh emphasised the importance of holding more number of mass awareness programmes, not only for the traders but also for the consumers.
He said, the lower and middle class traders and even those who do not fall in the GST network because of the turnover being below the tax exemption limit, must be educated about the advantage of registering for GST so that they get the benefit of being a part of the credit chain of the input tax.
Drabu gave Dr Jitendra a resume of a series of meetings that he had held with the trade organisations both in Srinagar and Jammu. As a result of this exercise, he said, most of the traders were now keen to be a part of the GST network because whatever misgivings they had earlier, were mostly the result of mis-communication or lack of understanding.
Drabu also informed Dr Singh that he is working on various options which could provide relief to the industry owners in the State. He also spoke of the various tax structure options that he had in mind. He said, people from all walks of life in J and K had wholeheartedly welcomed the One Nation, One Tax reform and they were reaching out to him to assure him of their cooperation.
Dr Jitendra also accepted Drabu’s invitation to visit Srinagar, the summer capital of J and K, on a date of mutual convenience in near future.