Jaipur, Feb 20: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Monday said that petrol and diesel can be brought under the GST ambit if the GST council takes a call.
She was in Jaipur to attend the post-budget press conference where she answered at length on questions related to petrol-diesel prices, inflation, rising repo rates, among other issues.
Answering a query on bringing petrol and diesel under the GST purview, she said, “Petrol and diesel can be taken under the GST if the GST council, which is not governed by any one government but finance ministers of all states, takes the call.
“The Centre government has made its intent clear by saying that we will put it as an item under GST. Now the GST council should take a call and let there be an ‘open charcha’.”
On the Congress’ allegations of a vindictive approach, the finance minister said, “Investigative agencies like ED, CBI and others do a huge big homework for quite some time and when they have necessary prime facie material in their hands, after having sent a number of questionnaires and getting partial complete, or no reply, they go. It can’t be done overnight by any instinct.”