Pune: The Goods and Services Tax Bill proposed by Congress was based on one slab taxing. However BJP government has implemented multiple slab tax system. And all the nations that implemented multiple slab GST have failed. GST proved successful in countries that adopted one tax system,” said Digvijaya Singh, general secretary of Congress and ex chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. He interacted with media in Pune on June 4. He visited Pandharpur to take blessings of god Vithala on the occasion of Ashadi Ekadashi.
He added, “I donot understand why BJP government celebrated implementation of GST as if India got second independence. Current GST has six slabs 0%, 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. GST for gold is 3%. And alcohol and petroleum products are not brought under GST. Earlier tax system was much better than GST. Now businessmen will have to pay tax 37 times unlike earlier when he had to pay returns four times in a year. Manufacturers of textile have already approached me saying earlier there was no tax of textile now they will have to pay taxes. Textile is second to agricultural providing largest number of employment across the country.”
He also pointed out that no infrastructure and human resource is in place for implementation of GST like big reforms. He said, “no written format of GST is available. First section of written documents of GST will be ready by July 15, second by July 31 and third and final by August 31. Why did it launch GST so early?”
He also criticised agricultural policy of the central government and loan waiver to farmers offered by Maharashtra. He said, “Government was aware that there was good monsoon last year in 2016 and farmers had yielded good harvest. Despite that government brought down import duty on pulses wheat from 10% to 0%. Resultantly rates of wheat and pulse went down and farmers in India had to sell their produce at rate lesser than minimum support price. That was the problem with onion and other agricultural produce.”
He said, “Maharashtra government’s loan waiver will not reach to all farmers and there are so many conditions in the offer. Farmers need to return all their interest first and later they will be given loan waiver. As of now farmers are not being able to get even Rs 10000 loan for sowing season and that is worrisome.”
He also criticised BJP for spreading communalism. He said, “BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have changed their policy from doing large scale communal riots to opting for small scale communal riots. They are the one who are motivating people to do lynching of people from minorities for reasons like carrying beef. Prime Minister Narendra Modi who tweets for small issues refrained from commenting on lynching for long. Both BJP and RSS are creating hatred among the nation that is full of diversity.” He is also hopeful that by the next election BJP will not have large support of people.
