Nearly Rs 2 lakh crore will be in people's hand due to GST reforms: FM Sitharaman
Madurai (PTI): Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said with the slew of GST reforms set to come into effect from September 22, a total of Rs 2 lakh crore will be in the hands of the people, boosting domestic consumption.
With the simplification of the Goods and Services Tax from the earlier four slabs to 2 slabs, Sitharaman said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keen to ensure that the poor and downtrodden, middle class families and the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) largely benefit out of the GST reforms.
The finance minister was speaking at the 80th anniversary of the Tamil Nadu Foodgrains Merchants Association here.
The new set of GST reforms with a revised tax structure is set to come into force from September 22.
"With the proposed GST reforms, there will be an increase in consumption in the domestic market. The Finance Ministry does not receive the Rs 2 lakh crore as taxes from the public, but it goes back into the economy aiding domestic consumption," she said.
Elaborating, she said, because of the two slab structure, the price of a product which a customer normally buys gets reduced.
"For example, when you buy the same product, say a soap in larger quantities, the manufacturer increases the production. To increase production, he recruits a lot of people, and when there are a lot of people, they pay tax to the income. And there will be revenue to the government as indirect taxes. When this virtuous cycle keeps on happening, it is good for the economy," she said.
To keep it simple, Sitharaman said when there is more spending from the public, there is higher demand. When there is higher production to meet the demand, there will be more jobs. And when there are more jobs, there will be a wider tax base.
To support her point, the finance minister said when the number of entrepreneurs who were paying taxes stood at 65 lakh before GST was introduced in 2017, it did not get reduced to 10 lakh. "But, entrepreneurs understood the benefit and in the last 8 years it has only increased to 1.5 crore," she said.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi termed the GST as a Gabbar Singh Tax, but it was not a Gabbar Singh Tax. "It (GST) only increased the tax base from 65 lakh entrepreneurs to 1.5 crore in the last 8 years," she remarked.
PM Modi has been insisting that the GST reforms should largely benefit the poor, middle class families and MSMEs in particular, she said.
Sitharaman also took a dig at a political comment whether the government was levying higher taxes for those products all these eight years and now it has been staging a drama that the rates have been cut or completely removed under the GST 2.0 reforms.
"One senior person asks whether the government was levying higher charges for all these eight years (since GST was introduced in 2017). I wish to state here that neither the NDA government nor the Prime Minister is not inclined to do that," she said without divulging further.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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