GST - WB Effect - New Chairman of Empowered Committee
IN one of his budget speeches, Dr. Manmohan Singh said, I am doing this under pressure from WB; WB is not World Bank, but West Bengal.”
The WB Finance Minister Amit Mitra has become the new Chairman of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on GST.
The Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers was originally set up on 17th July, 2000 by the Government of India with the State Finance Ministers of West Bengal, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi and Meghalaya as members with an objective to monitor the implementation of uniform floor rates of sales tax by the States and Union Territories, to monitor the phasing out of the sales-tax based incentive schemes, to decide milestones and methods of the States to switch over to VAT and to monitor reforms in the Central Sales Tax system existing in the country. Subsequently, State Finance Ministers of Assam, Tamil Nadu, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand and Rajasthan were also notified as the members of the Empowered Committee. On 12th August, 2004, the Government of India decided to reconstitute the Empowered Committee with all the State Finance/Taxation Ministers as its members.
Dr.Asim Dasgupta, Finance Minister of West Bengal was the Chairman of the new Empowered Committee from its inception till the year 2010-11. Sushil Modi, Finance Minister of Bihar took over in 2011 July. The Finance Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Abdul Rahim Rather took over in July 2013 as Sushil Modi had to resign consequent to his exit from the Bihar cabinet. After Rather lost his post in Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala Finance Minister KM Mani took over in March 2015. Mani resigned from his post as Kerala Finance Minister in November 2015 and so lost the Chairmanship of the Empowered Committee.
Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.Dr Amit Mitra did his Masters in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics in 1970 and further attained the Doctorate Degree in Economics from Duke University, USA in 1978.
Dr. Mitra was the Secretary General of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) from 1994 to 2011. In 2011 he was elected to the West Bengal Assembly defeating the then Finance Minister and a former Chairman of the Empowered Committee, Dr.Asim Dasgupta. Dr. Mitra became the Finance Minister in May 2011.
Dr. Mitra's appointment might be a step ahead for the Government in getting the GST Bill passed.