April 1, 2017 deadline for GST Rollout almost ruled out

The 2 day GST Coucil Meeting ended on 23rd December 2016.  The Centre and States covered significant distance towards rollout of Goods and Service Tax (GST), when they cleared bulk of the laws for the Central and State GST. The revised draft Bills, after a legal vetting will again be placed before the GST Council at its next meeting scheduled to be held on 3rd & 4th January 2017. After that the Bills will be taken up by Parliament and State assemblies.

However consensus still could not be reached on the issue of administrative control. The issue of administrative control and the related Integrated GST Law that deals with inter state Sales will be taken up in the next meeting of the GST Council. 

"I am trying my best (on deadline of 1 April). I don't want to hasten the process of discussion and don't want to delay the implementation," Jaitley said at a press briefing after the Council meet ended.
The Finance Minister however said: "There was no issue raised on dual control today as we were working on legislations."

The drafts of Central GST (cGST) and the compensation law have been mostly approved with the only portions relating to dual control being left out, he added.

Jaitley said that the two principle issues that still remain before the Council are Integrated GST (iGST) and cross empowerment.