Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the country still has the potential to grow at a higher rate than today. He also said that a series of action is required to reduce the poverty in the rural areas and they have planned several programmes along with measures to create jobs for rural areas.
Talking about the government’s demonetisation move, Jaitley said that one of the reasons for this move was tax non-compliant and one of the objectives of the note ban was to reduce and eliminate anonymity. He also said that presently there is much greater support for any reform in India.
On the GST front, the Minister further said that the new indirect tax regime would also make generation of cash more difficult, besides making the taxation system much more efficient. For the GST roll-out, he said that the first requirement is constitutional amendment, the law has been passed unanimously and by September 15, 2017 the curtain will be down. He also said that they have resolved most of the critical issues and the legislations have been drafted. He noted that recently they have approved the first draft and by first week of March, the second draft will come up. He also hoped that the bill would be implemented by July 1.