Govt geared up to meet April deadline on GST roll out: Hasmukh Adhia

New Delhi: Government is moving ahead of its schedule and is fully geared up to roll out Goods and Services Tax (GST) from April 1 next year, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said today.

The first meeting of the newly constituted GST Council, which will decide on the rates, exemption and threshold, will be held on September 22 and 23, he said while briefing reporters about today's Cabinet decision.

"As far as the administrative requirement is concerned, we are fully geared up for that. The Government of India is also monitoring IT implementation at the state level. As far as IT preparedness is concerned, we are fully on track," Adhia said.

Asked if the government is sticking to April 1, deadline, he said: "So far, yes... Right now we are all geared up for April 1, deadline. We will have to see how things proceed."

The industry, however, has been demanding more time to update their IT infrastructure to meet the requirement of the new tax regime. "The demand has not formally come to us. It is for them to decide and represent to the government in case they find it very inconvenient to go with the deadline," Adhia said.

The Cabinet today set up the GST Council after President Pranab Mukherjee gave his assent to the GST Constitutional Amendment Bill last week. So far, Adhia said "we are ahead of the time schedule.

The main thing to be done now is to call as many meetings of the GST Council and try and sort out all the major issues so that we are ready with the draft law completely and the industry can get itself ready".