This is very good news for all the traders doing business in Delhi. The traders who were waiting for their GST refund for a long time are going to get their money back before Diwali this time. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta has made a special announcement on Sunday. She has said that the GST refund of ₹ 1600 crore, which has been pending since 2019, will be given to the traders before Diwali. This decision has brought a wave of happiness to the faces of the traders.
Failure of the previous government and new steps
Chief Minister Rekha Gupta has claimed that the previous Aam Aadmi Party government had failed to release this pending GST refund. Taking the issue seriously, she called a special meeting with the officials of the GST department. Senior officials like GST Commissioner Nandini Paliwal and Finance Secretary Shauryaveer Singh were present in this meeting. The Chief Minister has given strict instructions to the officials that all pending and genuine refund applications should be settled on a priority basis as per the rules.
New technology to speed up the refund process
The Delhi GST department has taken a big step so that traders can get refunds as soon as possible. The Chief Minister said that an advanced IT module has been developed with the help of IIT-Hyderabad. With this new technology, the refund process will be faster and more transparent than ever before, so that traders will not have to face unnecessary delays and problems.
Big changes likely in GST Council meeting
An important GST Council meeting is going to be held in Delhi on 3 and 4 September. Many big decisions are expected to be made in this meeting. One of the biggest proposals is to reduce the existing 4 slabs of GST to only 2 slabs (5% and 18%). This proposal is from the central government and will be chaired by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
5% slab: This will apply to ‘merit’ category products and services.
18% slab: This will apply to ‘standard’ category products and services.
Apart from these, there is also a proposal to create a separate slab of 40% for some luxury and harmful products. If this proposal is approved, then this will greatly simplify the GST system.