There may be initial hiccups during GST roll-out: Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said people may have to face some difficulty initially as the GST is rolled out but in the long run the new indirect tax regime would help cut tax evasion and check price rise.

He also said the GST Council will look at bringing real estate within the GST net by next year and revisit taxing of petroleum products under the new regime in 1-2 years.

"To begin with, people could face some difficulties because any change over has its own problems. But it will settle down and the country will benefit from the new indirect tax regime," Jaitley said at an event organised by ABP News.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) will be launched on July 1 and will subsume a host of indirect levies like excise, service tax and VAT.

While products like kerosene, naphtha and LPG will be under the ambit of GST, five items — crude oil, natural gas, aviation fuel, diesel and petrol have been excluded from the basket for the initial years.

Reiterating that small and medium- sized traders in the country were not prepared for the Goods and Services Tax, the West Bengal government has decided to write to the Centre again requesting for postponement of the roll-out of the new tax system on July 1.

"Small and medium-sized traders in the country are not prepared for the GST. And we can foresee that we are heading towards a disastrous situation. We are again writing to the Centre to reconsider the roll-out from July 1 and postpone it until the nation is ready for it," finance minister Amit Mitra told reporters on Tuesday.