Kolkata: State Finance Minister Amit Mitra on Saturday lashed out at the timing of implementation of the GST and claimed that hawala transactions have increased due to the failure of the GST's automatic digitised process. The minister's claims assume significance as there have been reports of soaring deposits by Indians in Swiss banks.
"According to the design of the indirect tax system, GSTR 1, which is a form to be filled and uplinked, represents sales value figures while GSTR 2 forms, which represent purchase figures, are self-populated. GSTR 3B, a short form, was introduced and that form was not backed by invoices," Mitra, who is a member of the GST Council, said at a Facebook Live on the occasion of one year of the GST roll-out in the country.
"Here, I make a claim. As a result of (GSTR 3B) not being backed by invoices, not only are we going completely manual, hawala transactions have increased massively, according to our studies. This is because you are not putting invoices and there is no way to check it," the state Finance minister said.
Mitra, who chairs the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on GST, also pointed out that after falling for three years in succession, money deposited by Indians in Swiss banks rose by 50.2 per cent against an international growth of 3 per cent.
"Export refunds are not happening and exports are under stressed. Some three lakhs refund applications are waiting. About Rs 2 lakh crore, which was lying in the Central government's coffer, is waiting to be disbursed," he maintained.
He sought a reply from the Central government on holding Rs 2 crore in its coffer. "It should have been refunded to the people," he added.
The state Finance minister also hit out at the Narendra Modi government, claiming that his demonetisation had been an exercise in futility.
"As per figures available with the Reserve Bank of India, the total money in circulation when demonetisation was announced was Rs 18 lakh crore and currently 18.7 lakh crore are in circulation. Hence, the claims of cashless, less cash are epithets, mythical and utter rubbish," he said adding that 66 percent of the people in the country have not done a single digital transaction.
Mitra also hit out at the Jan Dhan Yojana scheme of the Centre and said that almost 50 per cent of these bank accounts are inactive.
He also alleged that the the Modi government had made a mockery of its promise of a corruption-free country. "They had promised a corruption-free country. The Central Vigilance Commission has pointed out that corruption has risen by 67 percent in 2016 in comparison to 2015," Mitra said.