Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is presiding over the 46th meeting of the GST Council held at Vigyan Bhawan, Delhi. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Choudhary, Dr. Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad and Finance Ministers of States and Union Territories are also attending this meeting. The Finance Ministry gave this information on Friday.
This meeting of the GST Council, to be headed by the Finance Minister, is considered very important. In this meeting, along with other issues, a decision can also be taken on reducing the rates of GST. There has been a long-standing demand of the states that the GST rates of 12 per cent and 18 per cent should be merged to form a single rate.
It is noteworthy that the Group of Ministers has also submitted its report to the GST Council regarding reduction in rates. In this, it has been suggested to bring some products with zero GST in the tax net with the merger of the two rates. The Finance Minister of West Bengal has opposed the imposition of 12 per cent GST on the textile sector. At the same time, along with business organization CAT, textile businessmen have also protested in many places including Surat.