Meet April deadline for GST: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asked officials to complete all steps required to meet April 1, 2017 deadline for rolling out GST.

“The Prime Minister reviewed the progress made on various steps needed for the rollout of GST relating to preparation of Model GST laws and rules to be framed, establishment of IT infrastructure for both Centre and states, training of officers of Central and state governments and outreach for awareness of trade and industry,” a PMO statement said.

 Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka, who made a presentation to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on GST network, however, was of the view that executing uniform tax regime in



the country from the next financial year is “hell of a challenge” owing to many “pockets of weak preparedness”.

He, however, said there was still time to address some of the issues for April rollout. Asked about the key challenges, Sikka said there were issues around technology and cultural readiness and Infosys was taking some world-class measures to ensure the GST IT framework is a secure one.

Infosys has been tasked with the job of building the IT infrastructure for the new indirect tax regime. Sikka admitted that the IT backbone of GST is an extremely complex and ambitious exercise as it involves banks, small businesses and states.