SEZ rules to be aligned with GST laws by month-end: Official
New Delhi, July 24 : The Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Rules, 2006 will be aligned with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) laws by July-end, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Speaking at an industry event organised by Assocham, Department of Commerce's Additional Secretary Bidyut Behari Swain said: "We have been working for a few months on the amendment of SEZ Rules, 2006 to synchronise it with the GST laws, this is under active consideration of the government."
"With due consultation process with Department of Revenue, I am glad to tell you that this fairly elaborate amendments of the rules is likely to come out now by the end of this month, it is almost at the final stage and we shall be issuing it," Swain was quoted as saying in a statement.
According to Swain, the Commerce Ministry has constituted a group of eminent persons to develop a road map for the future of SEZs.
"This group is deliberating today for the second time in this month itself, we really put a lot of hope on this and we feel that the ideas they come up with eventually in another one month or so would be really helpful for us in the policy making process," Swain said.
Noting that while the Department of Commerce consistently looks at facilitating ease of doing business by removing bottlenecks wherever they exist, it was observed that there is a possibility of different authorities handling administrative and financial matters being at slight variance with each other.
"We have taken up a project in which we would like to have a very clear set of guidelines regarding how administrative and financial matters by the authorities are carried out and we are hopeful that we will come out with a report in two months which should be implemented in three months," informed Swain.
At the same event, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Special Secretary and Member Customs Pranab Kumar Das said that CBIC will explore the possibility of connecting SEZ Online with NIDB (National Import Database) with the Commerce Ministry.
"We will definitely get in touch with Ministry of Commerce and try to find out whether the SEZ Online can also be housed in our system and with facilities provided to development commissioners and officials posted there so that they get benefit not only from SEZ Online but also the robust facility that is already available within CBIC," Das said.
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LPG crisis: Karnataka temples gear up to stock wooden logs for ‘Prasada’
Bengaluru (PTI): Temples in Karnataka have started preparations to stock wooden logs fearing that the LPG shortage could hamper the ‘Prasada’ preparation and distributions to the devotees.
The looming LPG crisis in the state in the wake of Iran-Israel conflict has made the temple managements jittery.
According to the Akhila Karnataka Hindu Temple Archakas Federation (AKHTAF) president M S Venkatachalaiah, there is no immediate crisis in the temples.
“We have LPG cylinder stock that can last for a week but if this scarcity continues then there will be a problem in serving Prasada (offerings to the deity) to the devotees,” AKHTAF president said.
He added that many temples in the state have started stocking wooden logs to overcome the LPG crisis.
“Our temples have started preparing to store wooden logs to prepare Prasada though currently we don’t have a problem, at least for a week,” Venkatachalaiah told PTI.
Another priest working in a temple belonging to the state Endowment Department said the temples may have to go back to the traditional way of cooking as done in the ancient time using wood.
The LPG crisis has not affected the mid-day meal programme for government school students yet, though there was a meeting in the Education Department to find ways to tackle if crisis deepens, sources associated with the Mid-day Meal programme said.
Meanwhile, the largest partner of the Mid-day Meal programme in the country is Akshaya Patra.
The NGO said they do not depend much on LPG gas cylinder.
“The LPG crisis has not affected us. Our kitchens are steam-based, and we generate steam through boilers which run on electricity. That’s point number one. Point number two—gas is used only for very minor things, mainly for seasoning. That is the tadka,” an Akshaya Patra executive told PTI.
According to him, the NGO has has a gas reserves for about nearly one month across India, though gas is used in very small quantities every day.
He pointed out that the Mid-day meal programme will not be affected because in one or one-and-a-half weeks, schools will close owing to summer vacation.
Akshaya Patra feeds 23.5 lakh children across more than 24,000 schools across India, in 16 states and three Union Territories, he said.
