Indian Railways has plans to more than handhold the small and medium enterprise vendors for Goods and Services Tax roll out, Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said here on July 3.

Addressing journalists after inaugurating a GST registration and help desk at Makkal Sevai Maiyam, he said that mere hand-holding of vendors would be a theoretical exercise if the Railways did not give them business.

So, while the Railways implemented the Vendor Development Programme, its capex investments amounting to Rs. 4.15 lakh crore would in turn benefit the SMEs. Of the Rs. 4.15 lakh crore, the Railways would invest around Rs. 40,000 crore in the short term alone for locomotive development.

The two international companies GE and Alstom would build diesel and electric locomotives for the Railways and their manufacturing in the country meant more business for their small and medium enterprise suppliers. Likewise, in the last three years, the Railways had committed to invest Rs. 1 lakh crore on railway station development alone. It had earmarked another Rs. 1 lakh crore for the high speed train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

Prabhu said the Central Government was doing more to help people understand the benefits of GST, find out if there were difficulties and take remedial action wherever necessary. It was a landmark legislation brought about in a market of India’s size and that was unprecedented.

The European Union that claimed of a unified market was only one-third of India’s and in the U.S., the population was only one-third of India’s and there too the 50 States had different laws.

The GST would lead to increase in economic activity, business expansion and result in job creation. This was ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ (Development with and for all) in its true sense.

As for the inclusion of petrol and diesel in the GST net, the Minister said it was for the GST Council to take a call.

Source: The Hindu