Skip to main content

Arrive at a consensus on GST fast: Mamata tells Amit Mitra

By
In what could be the best push for the longpending goods and services tax ( GST), West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday asked state finance minister and chairman of the empowered committee on GST, Amit Mitra, to arrive at a consensus on the issue soon.
“So far, no one has been able to do it. Now, Amit Mitra is leading it. A lot has been said; now, it’s time for action,” Mamata said. “ We want a one- tax formula for the industry. We have had it in our manifesto since 2009. We are in the Opposition, but we are still fighting for GST.” However, she also chose to take on the Centre for creating an ‘ environment of mistrust’, so that her party’s support for GST would not be construed as support for the Modi government.
Mamata also criticised the Centre’s smart city concept, though New Town Rajarhat on the northeastern fringes of Kolkata has been included in the latest list of smart cities announced by the Centre.
“This is a completely flawed concept. The money is for a building. We could have made better use of this money... Rajarhat is anyway ‘ oversmart’,” she said. Under the Smart Cities Mission, each selected city will get central assistance of ? 100 crore a year for five years. The West Bengal government has taken it upon itself to build six theme townships.
Mamata said her government would work towards preparing a vision document for five, 10 and 15 years. “ We will focus on automobile and manufacturing sectors.”
Business Standard New Delhi,08th June 2016

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

By
  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...
Post a Comment
Read more

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

By
  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Retail inflation cools to a six-year low of 2.82% in May on moderating food prices

By
  New Delhi: Retail inflation in India cooled to its lowest level in over six years in May, helped by a sharp moderation in food prices, according to provisional government data released Thursday.Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation eased to 2.82% year-on-year, down from 3.16% in April and 4.8% in May last year, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed. This marks the fourth consecutive month of sub-4% inflation, the longest such streak in at least five years.The data comes just days after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee cut the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.5%, its third straight cut and a cumulative reduction of 100 basis points since the easing cycle began in February. The move signals a possible pivot from inflation control to supporting growth.Food inflation came in at just 0.99% in May, down from 1.78% in April and a sharp decline from 8.69% a year ago.A Mint poll of 15 economists had projected CPI ...
Post a Comment
Read more