No question of prices going up, says Nirmala Sitharaman

BENGALURU: Allaying fears of inflation rising under the new goods and services tax (GST) regime, Union minister of state for commerce and industry Nirmala

Sitharaman

on Sunday said that it would lower the tax burden on people.

“There's a fear among people that prices of commodities will go up in the GST regime. But there's no reason to be afraid. Goods and services are, in fact, going to get cheaper,“ said Sitharaman at an interactive session organised by Samanvay, a social forum, in Bengaluru.

She said that the

GST council

had adopted 'revenue neutral principle' as the thumb rule for deciding the new tax slabs 0%, 5%m 12%, 18% and 28% -and subsequently classifying commodities under them.“While classifying commodities under new slabs, care was taken to ensure the new prices would be lower than existing ones in the VAT regime. Hence, there's no question of prices going up,“ she added.

Affirming the central government's preparedness for the GST rollout slated for June30-July 1 midnight, the minister added, “Chartered accountants from across the country had been roped in to examine the GST processes for. These are dry runs, and are being done between 3 and 5pm every day at district headquarters. Many indutries have expressed concerns. The GST council has set up 18 technical sub-committees to look into them.“ Principal commissioner for central excise M Vinod Kumar and additional director general of central excise DP Nagendra Kumar too were a part of the interactive session.