GST implementation by 1 April looking doubtful

The 1 April deadline for implementing the goods and services tax (GST) is likely to be missed, as the centre and the states have yet to arrive at any sort of consensus on the issue.

Among the contentious issues are placing the GST in the concurrent list or in a combined centre-states list; and a uniform rate for goods and services.

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is to meet law minister Veerappa Moily today, along with the solicitor general, the law secretary, the legislative secretary, the revenue secretary, and other department officials to find a way out.

Indian Express reported unnamed official sources as saying, ''There are two options for introduction of the GST in the Constitution. One is to put it both under the states and centre, where the central law prevails over the state. The other is to put it in the concurrent list. There has been no agreement on either of the options so far.''

On Monday, chairman of the prime minister's economic advisory committee C Rangarajan said the PMEAC favours a single slab each for goods and services or one common rate for both under the GST, which differs from the proposal mooted by the states.

"The centre could follow the pattern in which there is only one rate for goods and one rate for services, or one rate which is common to both goods and services," he said, adding that there is an advantage in having single uniform rate.