Congress forms five-member committee to examine bills, debates in Parl

New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday formed a five-member committee to examine the ongoing bills and debates in the Parliament on specific issues.

The five-member committee includes Congress leaders Anand Sharma, Jairam Ramesh, KV Thomas, Rajiv Satav and P Chidambaram.

According to sources, all members are to discuss their final decision with party chief Sonia Gandhi and party vice- president Rahul Gandhi, while taking Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha M. Mallikarjun Kharge in the loop.

The move came after the Cabinet today approved amendment in Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill and dropped one percent additional tax on inter-state sales as proposed in the current bill.

According to reports, the Cabinet also agreed to include the mechanism of compensating states for all loss of revenue for five years in the bill after the roll out of the new indirect tax regime.

The Bill in its present form provides 100 per cent compensation to states by the Centre for first three years, 75 per cent for fourth year and 50 per cent for the fifth year.Earlier, the Congress had asserted that they would support a constructive and positive GST Bill and questioned the ruling dispensation for making changes in the provisions of the same.

The Congress has three issues with the GST bill and wants the Centre to make necessary amendments to it.The party demands that a cap of 18 per cent be included in the GST Bill, deletion of the provision which allows imposition of one per cent tax by additional levy and an independent dispute mechanism.