Centre sets plan to ensure no shortage

New Delhi: Cabinet secretary P.K. Sinha on Monday asked secretaries of crucial departments to ensure that there is no shortage of products and consumer items in order to keep a check on prices.

Special emphasis was laid on to keep prices of essential commodities under check. Mr Sinha asked secretaries to ensure that retailers, dealers/shopkeepers should display a ready price list under GST of items sold by them.

He said government officials should ensure benefits of GST to pass on to consumers which would in turn also keep inflation under control.

Mr Sinha said that various machines used by dealers, retailers for computerised billing should be calibrated at the earliest as per the new GST rates.

Mr Sinha reviewed the situation after implementation of GST.

Apart from revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia, the meeting saw participation from about 20 secretaries from key departments. All the top brass of CBEC were also present in the meeting.

Weekly review meetings will be held every week to keep a close watch on GST roll out.

Mr Sinha asked every secretary to take up the responsibility of their own stakeholders, trade and industry and with state officers as far as implementation of GST is concerned.

Each ministry shall provide all the relevant info, including GST rates on their respective websites. He also asked departments to be ready to deal with queries of their respective stakeholders concerning GST.

In order to do that, officers of every ministry should equip themselves and have full knowledge of the details relating to GST concerning their respective ministry.

Secretaries and senior officers from various departments including textile, food and consumer affairs, food processing, railways, MSME, rural development, tourism, fertiliser, pharma and DFS among others participated in the meeting.

The secretaries updated about the queries received from the traders and other stakeholders after GST implementation.

Cabinet secretary asked them to get more detailed feedback and in depth details from field from their respective stakeholders, officers and consumers at large after GST implementation.

On June 20, Mr Sinha had taken a GST preparedness meeting with 30 ministries and departments.