Roundtable on GST at Bangalore on 15th Dec 2016

gst-bangalore-15-12-16As the government assures that all efforts are being made to rollout GST from April 1, 2017, the apex body for MSME Associations in the country, FISME, along with the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) organized a roundtable meet on implications of GST here on Wednesday.

The brainstorming meeting aims to help MSMEs adapt the GST regime smoothly.

SIDBI-FISME jointly with Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FKCCI) organized the Meet ‘GST: Identifying implications and facilitating adoption by MSMEs’.

The meet was attended by more than 80 MSME entrepreneurs from the region along with experts on GST and SIDBI officials. The participants included manufacturers, traders and entrepreneurs from the service sector who were also leaders of sectoral and other sub-regional associations from the state of Karnataka.

Giving his expert views on the subject, Bimal Jain, GST Expert cum Executive Director A2Z Tax Corp said GST will subsume many central as well as state taxes and do away with cascading of taxes and avoid double taxation.

He said GST will surely help fulfil PM’s vision of one nation- one tax.

On speculations overs April 1 deadline to be missed by the Government from GST implementation, Jain opines that chances are high for GST to get implemented from July 1, 2017.

Further, he said, “GST will be the first act in which it will be one country, one tax which will include Jammu and Kashmir also. J&K will also have to implement GST.”

SIDBI General Manager AC Sahu in his address said, “Bangalore is a very successful entrepreneurial hub for IT, Start-ups, MSMEs but if they do not get themselves prepared for GST, they will miss the bus.”

The inaugural address was given by FKCCI President MC Dinesh and Mukesh Kalra, Joint Secretary, FISME, presented the vote of thanks.

Dinesh thanked FISME and SIDBI for organising such a programme for their members. He also informed that FKCCI has been organising such programmes for their members not only at Bangalore but also at district and taluk level and this programme will provide more further insight to more such initiatives of the chamber

Ravi, Senior Vice President, FKCCI, said the outreach of this programme would be greater than 50000 since all the participants are representatives of various industry associations from across the state.

“A path breaking indirect Tax reforms is underway in India as Goods and Services Tax (GST) is being rolled out. Its repercussions will be felt by all economic sectors-small or large. To apprise MSMEs of the current state of debate about GST and to elicit their feedback to develop a capacity building agenda for smooth adoption by MSMEs, SIDBI and FISME have jointly initiated this nationwide campaign through a series of roundtables and webinars,” said the organizers.

Kalra said, ‘The first two programmes in the series have been held in New Delhi and Mumbai. The next roundtable will be held in Kolkata and Ahmedabad.”