National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah said onTuesday that if his party is voted to power in the next assembly election, itwould explore “all options” to bring the central Goods and Service Tax (GST)Act “in line with the autonomous character” of Jammu and Kashmir. The party islikely to make the promise a part of its manifesto for the Assembly election.
“So far no roadmap has been prepared but we have askedRather Sahab (senior NC leader Abdur Rahim Rather) to see what we can do tobring changes to it (GST) for good of the state,” Omar said in an exclusiveinterview with Greater Kashmir.
“We are working on it,” he said.
In 2017, the National Conference led the opposition to theimplementation of the GST in the state in its present form, stating that theuniform tax regime would erode J&K’s special status and its fiscalautonomy.
However, the then PDP-BJP government went ahead andfacilitated its extension to the state despite protests in Kashmir andopposition by the mainstream parties and trade bodies.
Omar, a former chief minister, said the party was looking at”all options”.
“We are looking at all aspects of the GST. I don’t know howmuch scope the previous government has left for us, but whatever scope isthere, we will bring changes to make GST regime friendly and in line with theautonomous position of J&K,” Omar said.
Jammu and Kashmir had powers to levy and collect taxesbecause of the fiscal autonomy the state enjoyed. The state legislature had thepowers to decide the tax rates as well.
However, under the new regime, these powers were taken awayfrom the state and vested with the GST council headed by the Union financeminister.
Omar said it was a “bad decision” by the then government toextend GST in its original form to the state.
“We have maintained that it will have both short and longterm losses for the state…it did erode fiscal autonomy of the state,” saidOmar, adding that the Act was one of the mistakes committed by the PDP-BJPgovernment.
The NC leader also questioned the previous regime for notfulfilling the promises made to different sections of the society vis-à-vis GSTimplementation.
“Those promises, the budgetary support to handicraftssector, the tourism and other sectors, to take care of the impact of the GST onthese sectors were not fulfilled. Nobody got anything and today all are crying.It is because whatever fiscal autonomy we had, GST took it away,” said Omar.