Govt rehearses GST launch; J&K to take final call on implementation today

New Delhi: A mega rehearsal was conducted in the Central Hall of Parliament ahead of the historic launch of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) at midnight on June 30. The rehearsal, on Wednesday, was conducted around 10 pm to ensure that all things were in place during the main event, official sources said. Officers concerned from various departments including those from the finance ministry attended the rehearsal event, they said. The event to launch the GST will be held in the circular-shaped Central Hall, which witnessed a function to mark 50 years of Independence, and will be 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 government. The final event is likely to start at 11 pm on June 30 and will be on till half past midnight, the sources said. Meanwhile,  the Jammu and Kashmir government will take a final call on implementation of the GST on Thursday after a meeting of the all-party consultative group, the state's Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu said as the July 1 rollout date neared. Jammu and Kashmir is the only state which has not taken a call yet on the implementation of the new tax regime which will come into force in rest of the country from July 1. Drabu said the Mehbooba Mufti government is "genuinely interested" in building a consensus because the GST is a regime that would last for the next 30-40 years. The all-party consultative group, headed by PDP MP and former Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Hussain Beg, was constituted by the government after an all-party meet failed to evolve a consensus over the issue. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had on Monday written a letter to Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, saying that failure of the state to implement the GST would lead to "adverse impact" of price rise and put the local industry at a disadvantage.