Odisha Assembly begins deliberation on GST Bill

Bhubaneswar: The special session of the Odisha Assembly on Thursday began to discuss the Odisha Goods and Service Tax Bill, 2017 and The Odisha Value Added Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2017.

However, it hit hurdles from the beginning with the Opposition seeking more time to go through contents of the Bills introduced by state Finance minister S B Behera.

Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra of Congress objected to the manner in which the Bills were pushed in the House. He sought more time for the lawmakers to study the bills before holding a discussion on the subject.

Mishra said there are 174 clauses in The Odisha Goods and Service Tax Bill, 2017 and 23 clauses on The Odisha VAT (Amendment) Bill, 2017 besides, huge annexures attached to them.

“Therefore, the members should be given adequate time to study and then discuss on the subject. Otherwise, the people will think that a bunch of jokers is sitting in the Assembly. We should have given more time to go through the GST and VAT Bills,” Mishra said.

Speaker Pradip Kumar Amat adjourned the proceedings till 3 pm and called a meeting of Business Advisory Committee meeting to fix the time for the discussion on the twin bills.