There is huge pressure on the states, Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal said (File)
The Congress is gearing up to corner the BJP government over implementation of the goods and services tax at the GST council meeting in Hyderabad on Saturday and the party has identified the textile sector as the area on which to attack the NDA. The Finance Minister of Congress-ruled Punjab and Karnataka’s representative on Friday said states were facing a huge shortfall in revenue and alleged pandemonium and chaos after the implementation of GST.
There is huge pressure on the states, Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal and Karnataka Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda told reporters here.
“Tomorrow at the GST council meeting, Congress will raise this very, very forcefully…The Congress has serious reservations on a lot of issues…. It was done in a hurry… They wanted to do it before Gujarat elections… but it has led to a lot of human hardships,” Badal added.
He said the textile sector had taken a huge hit. The import duty on fabrics has come down from 18 per cent to 5 per cent. Domestic production, which was exempted earlier, is taxed at 12 per cent now. “China and other competitors will flood the market… while big mills will comply… the burden on compliance on small units will hit them hard. There will be job losses and they will be forced out of business because of the competition,” Badal said.
Regarding tax collection, he said: “Punjab was expecting about Rs 1,650 crore revenue in July by way of taxes, but have got only Rs 846 crore.”
Gowda said Karnataka face a revenue shortfall of Rs 600 crore.
