Bihar becomes 2nd state to pass GST

The Bihar Assembly on Tuesday passed the Goods and Services Tax Constitutional Amendment Bill by voice vote. Bihar thus became the second state after Assam to ratify the bill.

The bill has to be ratified by at least 15 of the 29 states and Union Territories before it becomes a law.

A decision to convene the meeting of the Assembly and ratify the bill was taken following a discussion between Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

The Lok Sabha Secretariat too had asked the Assembly to get the bill ratified. Sources said Nitish favoured the passage of GST bill right from its inception.
His former deputy, Sushil Modi, who, by virtue of being the finance minister of Bihar, was also the chairman of the empowered committee of state finance ministers looking into GST a few years ago.

Modi, who had taken over from Asim Dasgupta of Left Front, had mooted several new proposals, which included raising the exemption threshold for small and micro enterprises and introducing a compensatory value-added tax for inter-state trade instead of the integrated GST.

But Modi had to quit midway as chairman of the panel after he resigned as Bihar’s finance minister when the JD(U) and the BJP parted ways in June 2013. However, now with the passage of the GST constitutional amendment bill, it is believed that Bihar may get an additional revenue of around Rs 8,000 crore (approx) depending on the rate which will be fixed by the GST Council.