GST Bachat Utsav begins with Navratri, double bonanza for people: PM Modi
Linking the rollout of the revised Goods and Services Tax structure to the start of the Navratri festival Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Sunday that the start of the “GST Bachat Utsav” (savings festival), along with the income tax relief announced earlier, will bring happiness to every family in the form of increased savings, accelerate India’s growth story, make business easier, investment more attractive, and ensure that every state becomes an equal partner in the development race.
In a 19-minute address to the nation, Modi said the second generation GST reforms was another “important and big” step in the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’. Underlining the need for adopting the path of self-reliance, he said, “Just as the freedom (movement) of the country received strength from the mantra of Swadeshi… similarly, the prosperity of the country will also receive strength from the mantra of Swadeshi.”
He said the MSMEs (Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises) have a big role to play in India’s quest for development, for which the country will have to take the path of self-reliance. “To make India self-reliant… a very large responsibility rests on our MSMEs… What the people of the country need, which we can manufacture within the country… we should manufacture within the country. With the reduction in GST rates and the simplification of rules and procedures, our MSMEs… sales will increase, and they will also have to pay less tax. They will also receive a double benefit. Therefore, I have expectations from MSMEs,” he said.
In the last 11 years, 25 crore people in the country, he said, have defeated poverty, or overcome it, and a very large group of the 25 crore people, having emerged from poverty, is playing a very big role inside the country today as the “neo middle class”.
“This new middle class has its own aspirations and dreams. This year, the government gave a gift by making income up to Rs 12 lakh tax-free. And it is natural, when there is a relief… in income tax, what a great change comes in the life of the middle class, and how much simplicity and convenience results. And now it is the turn of the poor, it is the turn of the neo middle class. Now the poor, the neo middle class, and the middle class are getting a kind of double bonanza,” he said.
Modi said if one combines the exemption in income tax and the exemption in GST, “the decisions taken in one year will result in savings of more than two and a half lakh crore rupees for the people of the country. And that is why I am saying this is a savings festival”.
Greeting people on the eve of Navratri, he said the country is taking another important and big step for the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’ . “Tomorrow, that is, on the first day of Navratri, September 22, the next generation GST reforms will be implemented,” he said.
