Note ban pain won’t last long, says Jaitley
Underlining that the economy was headed for a major change in the long run, finance minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said the note ban “pain” was short term and had been taken into account.
Speaking at the Petrotech summit, the finance minister said economic changes did not happen overnight, and one needed to lay the roadmap.
From being considered among the fragile five with high fiscal and current account deficits around two years ago, the economy today was a bright spot in the world, he said.
“(The) so called seven-decade normal had to be disrupted,” he said, adding the PM had the courage to face the consequences.
He further said the government had taken into account the pain people would experience in transition.
On the goods and services tax (GST), Jaitley said though most tax structure problems had been sorted out, they needed to resolve the issue of dual control.
“Only one major issue is pending and it is expected to be resolved in the near future ... we are hoping the issue of cross empowerment will be resolved and the GST is implemented from April 1,” he said.
The GST Council will meet again on December 11 and 12 to sort out the pending issues.
The GST Council, headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley, has already decided on a fourtier GST tax structure of 5, 12, 18 and 28%.
Luxury items and demerit goods would be taxed at the highest rate. They would also attract a cess to create a ₹50,000 crore corpus to compensate states for the loss of revenue.