A mega rehearsal has been planned on Wednesday in the Central Hall of Parliament ahead of the historic GST launch on the midnight of 30 June.
The rehearsal, scheduled to be held at 10 pm, may be supervised by either Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar, his deputies Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and SS Ahluwalia, or Secretary Rajiv Yadav, official sources said.
Officers concerned from various departments, including those from the finance ministry, will be part of the rehearsal event.
The event to launch the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will be held in the circular-shaped Central Hall, which witnessed a function to mark 50 years of Independence, and attended by President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and a host of senior ministers and bureaucrats, among others.
Mukherjee had piloted the first Constitutional Amendment Bill to bring in GST in 2011 when he was finance minister with the previous UPA regime.
The rehearsal has been organised to ensure that everything is well-organised and there is smooth conduct of the launch event, the sources said.
The final event is likely to start at 11 PM on 30 June and will be on till half past midnight the sources said.
Former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and HD Deve Gowda, Vice President Hamid Ansari and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan will also be the part of the event, they said.
All Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members have been invited as also chief ministers and state finance ministers, the sources said.
Talking ahead of the rehearsal, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday asked the Congress to refrain from indulging in politics over GST launch, saying all decisions with regard to the new tax regime were taken unanimously by the GST Council.
When asked about the Congress party being non-committal of attending the event, Jaitley said, “I don't know what they will do. All decisions (on GST) were taken collectively and we want the launch programme to reflect the collective nature of our polity.”
Jaitley also said that people might have to face some difficulty initially, as GST is rolled out, but in the long run the new indirect tax regime would help cut tax evasion and check price rise.
He also said the GST Council will look at bringing real estate within the GST net by next year, and revisit taxing of petroleum products under the new regime in 1-2 years.
“To begin with, people could face some difficulties because any change has its own problems. But it will settle down and the country will benefit from the new indirect tax regime,” Jaitley said at an event organised by ABP News.
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