Hyderabad: The Telangana Legislative Assembly and Council on Tuesday unanimously ratified the Constitutional Amendment Bill for the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
The Bill was introduced by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao in the State Assembly which was followed by a brief discussion by other members. MLAs including V. Srinivas Goud, C. Ramesh and Somaraju Satyanarayana of TRS, G. Chinna Reddy (Congress), Maozam Khan (MIM), G. Kishan Reddy (BJP), S. Venkata Veeraiah (TDP) and Sunnam Rajaiah (CPM) announced their support for the Bill. However, they said that the Telangana Government should ensure Constitutional guarantee on payments of compensation to the State by the Centre on account of introduction of GST.
The Chief Minister, in his reply, hoped that the GST would prove to be a boon for all the stakeholders. He expressed happiness that the Bill was being ratified unanimously.
Speaker S. Madhusudan Chary passed the Bill with voice vote.
The Bill was introduced by Deputy Chief Minister Kadiyam Srihari in the Council. Although the Congress members stalled the House for about 15 minutes demanding debate on farmers, they returned to the House after staging an unofficial walkout.
Council Chairman Swamy Goud allowed the Congress members to speak on the Bill and they supported it. The Bill was also cleared by the Council unanimously. (INN)