{"id":150,"date":"2019-03-20T11:46:51","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T11:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/?p=150"},"modified":"2019-04-03T11:46:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T11:46:09","slug":"agenda-2019-part-10-final-why-agriculture-rural-development-and-healthcare-require-a-gst-council-type-structure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/agenda-2019-part-10-final-why-agriculture-rural-development-and-healthcare-require-a-gst-council-type-structure\/","title":{"rendered":"Agenda 2019 \u2013 Part-10 (Final) : Why Agriculture, Rural Development and Healthcare Require a GST Council Type Structure?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arun Jaitley\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yesterday, the 19th March, 2019, the GST Council held its 34th meeting.<\/p>\n

The GST was enabled by a Constitution Amendment which was unanimously approved by both the Houses of Parliament.\u00a0 Several legislations to implement the GST were passed by the Parliament.\u00a0 Laws relating to the State GST (SGST) were approved by all the State Legislatures.<\/p>\n

The GST has enabled a single indirect tax in the whole country.\u00a0 Its implementation, compared to several other countries in the world, has been extremely smooth.\u00a0 Some initial teething trouble are to be expected.\u00a0 Everyone learns from experience.\u00a0 Not only did the GST consolidate multiple taxes and multiple cesses, it eliminated barriers in the country overnight.\u00a0 The whole of the country became a single market.\u00a0 Inspectors were eliminated; taxes were reduced and interface between the assesse and the Department was reduced.\u00a0 The online filing of returns and assessment was the order of the day.\u00a0 The input tax credit prevented the cascading effect of tax on tax and ensured that the back chain in manufacturing and services was done through authorisedly.\u00a0 A more efficient system detected leakages and improved the revenue collections.\u00a0 States have been guaranteed, for the first five years, a 14 per cent increase in annual revenue.\u00a0 For the first time since Independence, consumers have witnessed a continuous reduction of taxes.<\/p>\n

The decision making process of the Council<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chairing the Council in its initial years has been one of my most satisfying experiences. The quality of participation of State Finance Ministers and their supporting Civil Servants was extremely high.\u00a0 The debates in the Council were on issues of substance.\u00a0 There was no populism.\u00a0 Concern for revenue, consumers, industry and trade dominated the discourse.\u00a0 They concentrated on simplifying procedures.\u00a0 Members shed their political colours outside the meeting venue.\u00a0 To satisfy their political constituencies, some spoke outside the meeting but inside there was an atmosphere of positive suggestions.\u00a0 At times conflicting views and thereafter the consensus.<\/p>\n

Thousands of decisions have been taken in the Council.\u00a0 These range from framing of new regulations, circulars, notifications and tariff fixation.\u00a0 Council was always prepared, based on market reports, to make changes wherever required.<\/p>\n

The States effectively had a two-third voting right and the Central Government had one-third voting right.\u00a0 All decisions had to be approved by at least three-fourth majority.\u00a0 This necessarily meant that the Centre and the States had to work together.\u00a0 Yet the Council set an incredible precedent which recognises the delicate balance of India\u2019s federalism by taking all decisions through consensus and not once putting any decision to vote.\u00a0 I hope this continues in future.\u00a0 The decision making culture involved extensive discussions flagging various viewpoints and, thereafter, formulating the consensus.\u00a0 A consensus is never imposed, it evolves.\u00a0 Where consensus was not possible, the matter was not pursued.<\/p>\n

The lessons from the GST Council<\/strong><\/p>\n

The GST Council has become India\u2019s first federal institution.\u00a0 Its working is a role model in other areas where federal institutions are needed in India.\u00a0 It displays the maturity of India\u2019s democracy and politics.\u00a0 When larger national interest requires, decision makers can rise to the occasion.\u00a0 It negates the popular impression that politicians of different shades of opinions will always be divided on party lines.\u00a0 It has worked to the benefit of industry, trade, consumers and has become the single most important tax reform in Independent India.\u00a0 The question, thus, is why can\u2019t this experiment be replicated elsewhere?<\/p>\n

Agriculture, rural development and healthcare<\/strong><\/p>\n

Agriculture, rural development and healthcare are areas where, in larger national interest, the GST Council experience heeds to be replicated.\u00a0 Both the Central and the State Governments have several schemes working for the betterment of the farmer.\u00a0 The agricultural sector needs a major support.\u00a0 Both Centre and States spend a large part of their budget in the sector.\u00a0 Similarly, the process of developing rural infrastructure and improving the quality of life in villages has now started.\u00a0 A lot more needs to be done in both agriculture and rural development.\u00a0 Should the Centre and the States be only competing and not supplementing efforts of each other?\u00a0 Should they not be pooling their resources and ensure that no overlap or duplication takes place and that the interest of the largest number is protected and enhanced?<\/p>\n

The same is equally true on healthcare.\u00a0 Primary Health Centres, hospitals, health schemes for treatment of poor patients, supply of medicines at an affordable cost are all intended by both Central and the State Governments to ensure that affordable healthcare is available to the people.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0For those who cannot afford healthcare, it is available at the cost of the Central and some State Governments.\u00a0 Is overlap of expenditure necessary or should it be pooled and spent in an optimum manner?<\/p>\n

Are elected Governments intended to non-cooperate with each other or must they work on the principle of \u201cBahujan Hitay Bahujan Sukhay\u201d.\u00a0 West Bengal, Delhi, Odisha are amongst the States which have refused to implement Ayushman Bharat where every poor family gets upto rupees five lakh of hospitalisation support annually.\u00a0 Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka and West Bengal are non-cooperative in PM Kisan scheme where small and marginal farmers get Rs.6000\/- income support annually.\u00a0 Is this in public or national interest?\u00a0 Is it necessary to act against the poor and allow the compulsion of competitive politics to take over?<\/p>\n

Society has great faith in the wisdom of men and women.\u00a0 The country hopes that the wisdom prevails over transient political requirements.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arun Jaitley\u00a0 Yesterday, the 19th March, 2019, the GST Council held its 34th meeting. The GST was enabled by a Constitution Amendment which was unanimously approved by both the Houses of Parliament.\u00a0 Several legislations to implement the GST were passed by the Parliament.\u00a0 Laws relating to the State GST (SGST) were approved by all the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[153,157,156,155,158,154],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political","tag-agenda-2019","tag-gst-council","tag-healthcare","tag-rural-development","tag-type-structure","tag-why-agriculture"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalsandesh.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}