Nirmala Sitharaman chairs 41st GST Council meet; media briefing at 3 pm
The 41st Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting is underway. The 41st GST Council will be chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, is held via video conferencing, has just one agenda for discussion — making up for shortfall in states’ revenues.
Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Anurag Thakur, Finance Ministers of States and Union Territories (UT) and senior officers from the Union Government and states are attending the meeting. The meeting was scheduled to begin at 11 am, where the Council is expected to discuss issues such as compensation to states and GST rates revision.
"Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will chair the 41st GST Council meeting via video conferencing at 11 AM in New Delhi today. The meeting will be attended by MOS Anurag Thakur besides Finance Ministers of States and UTs and Senior officers from the Union Government and States," the Ministry of Finance tweeted.
The GST Council meeting is likely to be a stormy affair as opposition-ruled states unite to pressure the Centre to give them the promised compensation for loss of revenue arising from the implementation of GST.
On Wednesday, Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi held a meeting with Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled states and their counterparts of West Bengal, Maharashtra and Jharkhand on the issues related to GST dues of states and said that refusal to pay GST compensation to states is nothing short of betrayal on the part of the Narendra Modi government.
In the last meeting held on June 12, the GST Council decided to waive off fees for late filing returns between July 2017 to January this year in a bid to minimise the impact of COVID-19 crisis on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
