Dasarath Tirkey speaks on the damages to tea gardens in Alipurduar during monsoon

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Thank you Chairman Sir for giving me the opportunity. I want to attract the attention of the Ministry of Water Resources. My constituency Alipurduar in located in north Bengal and has many big rivers. During monsoon these areas are flooded and specially the tea gardens face a huge economic loss. I want to urge the Ministry to take steps to prevent such losses in future.

Ratna De Nag seeks the reopening of a cancer research centre in Chandernagore

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Thank you Sir. It has been the request of my people of West Bengal for opening the Ruplal Nandi Memorial Cancer Research Centre at Chandernagore (Hooghly district in Bengal).

Since it is closing down a large number of people are put under a lot of hardship. It is to be noted here that this cancer centre is a unit of the Chittaranjan National Cancer Research Centre at Kolkata. It used to cater to patients from  Howrah, Hooghly and 24 Parganas. But now they are forced to travel 50 km to get treatment from the Kolkata hospital.

Under these circumstances, I like to urge to the Hon. Minister for reopening of the Ruplal Nandi Memorial Cancer Research Centre at Chandernagore and come to the rescue a large number of people.

 

Sukhendu Sekhar Roy asks a Supplementary Question on the nuclear reactors located in Kovvada

FULL TRANSCRIPT

 

I would like to as a pointed question. How many years are required to be taken for the commissioning of all the six nuclear reactors at Kovvada?

Bijoy Chandra Barman asks a Supplementary Question on new coal block allocation policy

FULL TRANSCRIPT

I want to ask the Hon. Minister how many open cost projects had been outsourced by the ECL in the last three years, and what was the target of production in those OCPs. How many projects in coal mines are running behind their target production in the country?

Bengal leads among States in decrease in crimes related to child labour

Bengal is leading the country in eradicating the instances of child labour. Over the last three years, only in Bengal has there been an appreciative decrease in crimes related to child labour. This fact came out in a report presented by the concerned Union Minister in Parliament on March 27.

The State-wise list of the number of crimes concerned with child labour from 2014 to 2016 was presented, according to which, during this period, the law has been moved against only 42 people in Bengal.

Significantly too, during the above-mentioned period, there have been 1,131 operations in the State to rescue children illegally engaged in labour.

 

Image source: PTI

 

শিশু শ্রমিক নির্মূলের পরিসংখ্যানে এগিয়ে বাংলা

 

দেশ থেকে শিশু শ্রমিক নির্মূলের পরিসংখ্যানে এগিয়ে রয়েছে পশ্চিমবঙ্গ। গত তিন বছরে একমাত্র বাংলাতেই শিশু সংক্রান্ত অপরাধের হার লক্ষ্যণীয় ভাবে কম রয়েছে। ২৭ মার্চ লোকসভায় কেন্দ্রীয় মন্ত্রী এই ইস্যুতে একটি রিপোর্টও পেশ করেছেন।

২০১৪ থেকে ২০১৬ সাল পর্যন্ত শিশুশ্রম সংক্রান্ত অপরাধের রাজ্যওয়াড়ি তালিকা পেশ করা হয়েছে। সেই তালিকা অনুযায়ী এই তিন বছরের সময়সীমার মধ্যে শিশুশ্রম সংক্রান্ত অপরাধে পশ্চিমবঙ্গে মাত্র ৪২ জনের বিরুদ্ধে আইনানুগ ব্যবস্থা নেওয়ার প্রক্রিয়া শুরু হয়ে গেছে।

২০১৪ থেকে ২০১৬ পর্যন্ত বাংলায় শিশুশ্রমিক উদ্ধারে অভিযান হয়েছে ১ হাজার ১৩১টি।

 

Saugata Roy speaks on GST Bills in Lok Sabha

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Our Speaker Kalyan Banerjee had earlier supported the GST Bills. I do support them also because in the Manifesto of our party in 2009, we had supported GST. In the GST Council, Bengal’s Finance Minister fought for many rights of the States while supporting the GST. He has been able to bring some modifications.

Why did we support the GST at all in the Inter-State Council? It is because we consider that it would benefit the country, the people. It would bring down the tax-related inflation and it will also bring down tax in India, which is roughly 30%.GST would also remove inefficiencies in supply chain due to savings on transport, warehousing and inventories.

We have to see that the physical conditions of the States do not deteriorate. Sir, here in this Parliament when the 101st Constitution Amendment Bill said that the Centre “may” compensate the States, we fought for making it “shall” compensate the States. Ultimately, now it has been put “for five years”; earlier the Centre was saying “up to five years”. West Bengal demanded in the GST Council that it has to be made “for five years” and it was made so.  But see how the compensation to the States will be worked out. At present, cigarettes have tax up to 65 per cent, luxury cars, above 45 per cent, sugar-added aerated drinks, 44 per cent, pan masala, 50 per cent. After five years, this cess will be used for paying compensation to the States. After five years, the standard tax will be 40 per cent.

Now the question is, the revenue expected from these cesses is roughly Rs 65,000 crore. And the Centre says environmental cess will be there to the extent of Rs 24,000 crore. The two added comes to Rs 79,000 crore. It has been estimated that, with the revenue of the States falling, the amount might well go up to Rs 90,000 crore. Where would this extra money come from to compensate the States? That has not been made clear.

It’s true that, as I had already said, small businesses must benefit. So Rs 20 lakh has been kept as a threshold for registration and a large number of businesses would be out of GST for this purpose. The composition scheme for manufacturers and traders, you don’t have to pay that. If you are below Rs 50 lakh, you can pay 0.5 per cent, 1 per cent and 2 per cent. If the turnover is below Rs 1.5 crore, 90 per cent would be with the State and 10 per cent would go to the Centre. It would be tough work to determine which items would be with the Centre and which would be with the States. And then, if it is above Rs 1.5 crore, there will be cross-empowerment, that is, the States will get half and the Centre will get half.

So, GST is cross empowerment and the input tax credit (hereafter, ITC) is given there. Now what do I envisage as the problem in GST? Let me mention clearly the Centre is since to be in a hurry to pass GST but have not yet fixed the rates. There are almost 4,000 items whose rates have to be fixed. You have fixed the basic rates: zero, one, five, twelve, eighteen and twenty eight. But, what about the rate of the individual commodities? That you have not fixed.

There will be a problem of fitment. Say one tax rate is 15%, how will it be fitted in 12% or 18%? These basic questions have not been resolved. They have only had 10 meetings of the GST council. Who will fix these rates? This will be the most contentious issue of all. Even the businesses are totally unprepared for GST; they do not know what tax they will pay because they do not know what rates there will be. What will the small businesses do?

Sir, the biggest problem of this is the GST Network (GSTN). I have mentioned earlier that the Government formed a Sec 25 Company to run the GSTN. It is not yet ready, aa result of which they have put Infosys as manager and service provider at Rs 1380 crore. GSTN has to operate in 17 languages. Whenever it will be ready, it will be the world’s biggest computer system, and, as Mr Moily correctly pointed out, it will be a technological nightmare. If there will be any breakdown in the server, all over the country GST will go flat. So, Sir, I want the Government to be very careful. Government has said that they will train 60,000 officers for this job. For that, at least six months are necessary.

Sir, I said that a single market is a good idea but you see the example of Australia, or that of Malaysia; GST is facing serious problems in these countries. So, instead of hurrying let us put the systems in place. No political party in the country has opposed GST in principle. We are worried about the fallout this will have.

And ultimately last point. Sir, prices should not increase. In the year of transition, Government must ensure that.

Debabrata Bandyopadhyay speaks on The Appropriation Bill (Railways)

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Thank you Mr Chairman for giving me this opportunity to speak on the Railway Appropriation Bill. I would also like to thank my party for this opportunity.

The Indian Railway has two important responsibilities – economic viability on one hand and social responsibility on the other. The Railways must keep both these responsibilities in mind in all their initiatives. For the first time in India, the General and Railway budgets have been combined. However, this merger has allowed the Government to hide certain facts certain facts.

I would like to highlight that since Independence, capital spending on the railways has largely been borne by the Central Government. In the last 2 years this pattern has changed and State Governments have been asked to bear costs through SPVs. The Government has pushed 70 projects with 9 State Governments that require financial and other resource contributions by those State Governments. While this may work with a few State Governments, this model is not viable for those states that are debt stressed and cash-strapped.

The gross traffic receipts (GTR) for 2017-18 has been projected at Rs. 188,998 crore. In 2016-17, the GTR was projected at Rs. 184,819 crore. But the revised estimates of the Budget admitted to a shortfall of Rs. 12,664 crore. It is obvious that even this year’s projection will fall short. The Government is not being honest with the state of railway finances. For the first time since 1978, there was a drop in freight earnings compared to the previous year.

The Railways is popular on social media like Facebook and Twitter. However, the number of unreserved passengers is 12 million out of 13 million. How are you engaging with this 12 million?

This year, with the merger of the Railway Budget with the General Budget, the larger social obligations of the railways have been completely side-tracked. The generosity and sense of mission has gone. Indian Railways has been a big supporter of Indian sport. In 2016, one-third of the Indian contingent to the Rio Olympics was from Indian Railways. How have they been repaid? By changing rules and making it difficult for sportspersons to train.

The earlier 330-day special casual leave (SCL) will now be given to only a certain category of sportspersons, including Olympics and Commonwealth Games medal winners. The 120-day SCL granted to players without a medal, but with the potential to win one, has been cut to 90 days. Even the provision of half-day leave has now been discontinued, being allowed only in exceptional cases. This will come in the way of regular training. One of my colleagues has written to Mr. Suresh Prabhu regarding this and I hope he takes immediate action.

Another important aspect of social responsibility is energy conservation. There is a Railway Budget promise to fit all coaches of all trains of Indian Railways with bio-toilets by 2019. The government has given up on this. In reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha a few days ago, it said only “about 800 trains” had “either some coaches or all the coaches fitted with bio-toilets”. So I would like to ask the Minister what is the projected timeframe for fitting all coaches with bio-toilets?

No doubt rail safety was emphasized in the Budget with the announcement of the Rashtriya Rail SanrakshaKosh. However, as on November 2016, 1,25,754 non-gazetted posts related to safety were vacant. As of October 2016, there were 410 pending compensation claims relating to train accidents. Instead of bullet trains, doesn’t India need more safety officials?

I would also like to speak specifically about our state West Bengal. The 2017-18 outlay for West Bengal is Rs 6,336 crore as compared to Rs 3,820 crore in the previous year. Projects worth Rs 40,000 crores including the Metro Railways are ongoing in Bengal. However, you have allotted only 15% to Bengal in the Demand for Grants. This will slow down these projects.

I am happy to point out that Kolkata Metro Railway is performing very well. Budgetary GTR projections for 2016-17 were at Rs. 242 crore. Revised estimates pushed up this figure to Rs. 256 crore. Kolkata Metro, Northeast Frontier Railway and East Coast Railway are the only zonal railways that have posted better figures than the initial budgetary projections.

However, the Railways has sent a letter to the West Bengal government stating that from now on the state has to take responsibilities of all ongoing and upcoming projects of the suburban system as well as Metro Railway. While this may work with a few State Governments, this model is not viable for those states that are debt stressed or cash strapped.

Also, in both Houses of Parliament, our MPs have made specific demands, I would urge you to please look into those as well. Railway Budget has been swallowed up by the General Budget. I urge the Minister to ensure that the social responsibility of the Railways is not side-tracked in pursuit of economic viability.

Thank you, Sir.

 

Sukhendu Sekhar Roy makes a Point of Order on the Finance Minister’s reply on Finance Bill

FULL TRANSCRIPT

First of all, the “reasons to believe” cannot be unreasonable. If the Court has the power to hear an aggrieved person on this point, why should the Appellate Tribunals not hear?

Therefore, it appears from the statement of the Hon. Finance Minister that the Government will not consider the demand made the Opposition parties. So, we are staging a walkout.

 

Vivek Gupta speaks on the Finance Bill

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Thank You, Sir, for giving me an opportunity to speak today. Sir, as the Finance Bill is a little disturbing for me because my State – আমার সোনার বাংলা – my West Bengal is going to be deprived of Rs 4,000 crore every year just on account of non-division of the cess and surcharge that the Central Government is going to collect. Sir, the cess and surcharge over the last two to three years have jumped from a mere amount of Rs 20,000 or Rs 30,000 crore to 1.7 lakh crore.

Sir, rough pen and paper calculation shows that West Bengal will be deprived of Rs 4,000 crore because cess and surcharge is not shared with the States. Sir, what is more intriguing is that all the people who have spoken before me in the Council of States, have chosen not to raise this point because each and every State will get affected from this point.

Sir, the Finance Minister made forty amendments in Lok Sabha. I request him to make similar amendments here and remove all cess and surcharge and include them in the taxes, so that the States also get a share.

Sir, enough has been said before me but I would like to draw your attention to a few things. Sir, the tribunals have been merged and a lot of changes have been done. Sir, enough has been said about Money Bill. I just want to quote something, Sir. The Supreme Court, in the Madras Bar Association vs Union of India, in 2014, had held that “appellate tribunals have similar powers to High Courts and hence matters related to appointments should be free from the executive involvement.” Sir, I urge, through you, that all the tribunals, which are now being put under the executive control, should be free from executive control so that their independence is maintained.

Sir, Clause 50 of this Finance Bill is a very interesting clause. This government, our Prime Minister and Finance Minister, both of them have repeatedly said that they will not do any retrospective changes and they will not do any tax terrorism. But Sir, if you see Clause 50 and Clause 51 they have done exactly the same.

Sir, first I’ll refer to Clause 51 and I will just read from there. “In Section 132 of the Income Tax Act, in Sub Section 1, the following explanation shall be inserted and shall be deemed to have been inserted with effect from the first day of October 1975”. Sir, if this is not retrospective change, I fail to understand what is retrospective change.

Sir, another draconian provision, Clause 50, in section 132, Sir, where they are saying, “shall not be disclosed to any person of authority or Appellate Tribunal’. Sir, I was going through the Honourable Finance Minister’s reply in the Lok Sabha where he said he is doing it because he wants to protect the person who is giving the information. Sir, I am sure there is the Whistleblowers Act and other Acts that provide some confidentiality. Don’t disclose the name of the person but at least the reason can be given at the Appellate level. Sir, why is the assessee being denied a chance to defend himself? Why should he not know why the Income Tax people are doing certain seizure on him? Then again, Sir, 9(b) of Clause 50 says, merely by getting the sanction of the Director General provisionally any property can be attached. Sir, I think we are going back to the dark ages. I don’t know what will happen.

Sir, as I have said before, frequent changes – as many as 40 amendments – have been made in the Finance Bill on the day it was introduced in Lok Sabha. But, if you see this Finance Bill, here more than 300 amendments have been made. Sir, why does a tax law need so many amendments and so many changes every year? Why can’t we have a thorough discussion once and for all and move for a simplified ease of doing business, as this Government claims.

Sir, I just have three questions for the government. Sir, the Finance Minister in his reply to the Lok Sabha said that the RBI is still checking for fake notes in the currency deposited during demonetisation. Sir, I would like to know – whenever the Finance Minister speaks – how much loss has the RBI suffered on account of accepting fake notes? RBI’s loss means ultimately we are suffering.

He also said that there are many instances where people with five PAN cards have been discovered. Sir, I would like to know what is the number of such people who have been prosecuted. How many people have been discovered with multiple PAN cards?

And Sir, the last point. Even the Law Minister himself said on the floor of the House that in 46% cases, the government is the litigant. Is there any plan to reduce this reputation? Are they planning to file cases based on merit and not just on a monetary limit? Right now there are monetary limits for going to higher courts but not on the merit of the case.

Thank you.

 

Kalyan Banerjee speaks on GST Bills in Lok Sabha

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Sir, I am grateful that you have given me the chance to speak with respect of the GST Bill. Sir, West Bengal fought hard to preserve and protect cooperative federalism in the process of the formulation of the GST. It also fought uncompromisingly on fiscal autonomy of all states of the nation on matters of GST. This was the hallmark of West Bengal that is so visible in many parts of the Bills presented to us in the Parliament.

As Chairman of the Empowered Committee, the West Bengal Finance Minister was instrumental in bringing about a broad consensus amongst states on single control in the hands of the State below Rs 1.5 crore turnover of small business in its meeting in the great city Calcutta many months ago. I believe the honourable Union Finance Minister Mr Jaitley was a witness to this consensus amongst States that had not been seen even before. Such was a seminal role played by West Bengal in protecting cooperative federalism and fiscal autonomy of the states at many such occasions in the course of formulation of this GST Bill.

Our leader and the present Chief Minister of the State of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, had in-principle supported the concept of GST as early as 2009 in our party-manifesto. The idea was to usher in a strong and cohesive indirect tax regime that creates a single market for all trade and industry that is beneficial for the common man and small traders and enterprises.

A draft GST Bill was circulated in the month of September, 2016 which had many clauses that were not in the fullest interest of the States, common man and small traders and enterprises. But, through the deliberations of the GST Council, a number of ideas were thrashed out and I believe West Bengal engaged uncompromisingly in a spirit of cooperative federalism and fiscal autonomy of the States.

West Bengal took the lead and ensured that the Constitution Amendment on GST incorporates the commitment of the Central Government to give full compensation to the States on account of any loss due to GST for a period of five years. The Compensation Act has also been design keeping in mind the mandate of the 122nd amendment of the Constitution and this will ensure that no State in the country will suffer any financial loss due to GST.

Our state has always stood up for the marginalised and needy, small traders and manufacturers who provide the bulk of the employment; the industrial sector have been given due regard in the new GST Law. In this spirit, West Bengal pushed hard for the GST threshold to be raised to Rs 20 lakh turnover. So that small and tiny business are kept out of the purview of the GST.

A composition scheme has also been offered for small traders and manufacturers upto an annual turnover of Rs 50 lakh. This composition scheme for manufacturers is a new feature that will help protect small and new manufacturers, specially in the MSME sector. West Bengal stood firm on this new feature which will benefit lakhs of small businesses and make tax compliance much easier.

Additionally, in order to ensure least disturbance and to provide a single interface so that the assessee does not have to face more than one authority, the concept of cross-empowerment has been introduced in the law. The State Governments and the Central Government will empower the officers of the other Governments, under the respective Acts, the assessee has to go to only one office and deal with only one authority. Apart from this, in order to ensure that small traders do not face any problems in working with the new law, 90 per cent of the assessees of both goods and services below a turnover of Rs 1.5 crore have been kept exclusively with the State Governments.

The purpose of GST was to get rid of multiplicity of taxes and the related cascading effect and to unify different taxes into a single entity. Firstly, the ill-effects of inflation can be scuttled to a large extent. Adding to this, this removal of multiple tax structures means a reduction in the cost of compliance, the benefit of which should finally pass down to the consumer.

The entire structure of GST has been created on the premise that the common man must benefit from the unification of taxes, and therefore it is necessary that the rate structures of different goods and services are adjusted so as to reduce inflation and also the prices of goods of mass consumption, so that the average Indian benefits from this path-breaking enactment.

Another important benefit of the new Goods and Services Tax is the boost to ease of doing business. A common law and standardised treatment of taxable entities with the special feature of full set of tax liability incurred being transferrable throughout the nation means that businesses do not have to think in terms of sales and can compete on cost-effective and competitive products that can compete in international markets and benefit the common man at the same time. It is expected that such a major reform in the structure of indirect taxation will not only help curb inflation but will also have a very positive effect on the growth of GDP. It is hoped the one country-one tax regime will result in growth in all sectors boosting both rural and urban economies in this nation.

Having said so, even then, we have concerns in a few areas which I would now like to point out.

Number one: while the spirit of, and the law on GST is sound, with both the States and the Centre having played a role in ensuring that a sound legislation is in place, there are still some areas of concern as far as the implementation is concerned.

Number two: considering the scale of the reform, it is imperative that sufficient time be given to build up the structures required to ensure the proper implementation of the GST law, we should not rush through the preparation as that is bound to give rise to small but crucial errors which may hamper the implementation of the law. We need to look at the experiences of other nations and learn from the mistakes made there so that we can implement the law in a proper manner.

Number three: another area of concern is the rate structure itself. The process of treatment of rates for different goods and services is yet to be started. Unless the industry is informed about the rates and sufficient time is given, it will not be possible for them to modify their ERPs and systems well in time to meet the deadlines. Therefore it is necessary that the rate treatment process be completed quickly so that industry in general has reasonable time to prepare.

Number four: another area of concern is the preparation of the GST Network – the GSTN. The GSTN is the core system which links all the States and the Centre with the assessees and is pivotal to the implementation of this goods and services tax system. This is one system that cannot afford to fail as its failure will lead to a collapse of the entire indirect tax system of the nation. Therefore it is necessary to get all the models of the GSTN prepared and tested  as quickly as possible so that the assessees and the industries have enough time to train up their personnel to gear up their systems.

A completely e-based indirect taxation system means that even the smallest player has to be on board without which the input tax credit (ITC) chain and linkage will be lost. The small businesses must be given adequate time to adapt themselves to this completely new system.

This is a complex fiscal reform. State and Centre together in a federal polity must take appropriate quantum of time which will be sustainable and successful. I will request the Hon. Finance Minister, through you, that we should not rush for this. Look into the defects once again. Do not rush for July 1 deadline. We have time till September 1. The arenas which have been discussed still have lacunae; errors are there which may make it difficult for implementation. These arenas should be covered and discussed and necessary amendments should be brought.

Overall the goods and service tax enactments are set to usher in an area of a higher compliance, efficient taxation, reduce inflation and better growth. It is important that the implementation is also made by both Centre and State in the true spirit of cooperative federalism helping build the nation together. That should be the spirit. No one should ask for only credit, we have all done this together.
Thank you, Sir.