Narendra Modi is an experienced and seasoned leader; it would be foolish on anyone’s part to think that he was not well aware of the outlash he will face from the business community for a disruptive step such as GST which will force the trading community to pay taxes on goods, something they have been evading since forever. GST and taking disruptive steps have been the need of the hour to increase the transparency and bring more indirect taxes into the net.
Last year, he took on a community which no one in the history of India had ever dared to ruffle – the Jewellers. He imposed a cess on jewellery traders bringing their sales in the tax net. Narendra Modi knows that it will lead to outlash from the jewellers.
Modi was well aware of the implicit but strong outlash he will face from Central government employees for introducing Biometric attendance? Those who were used to come at 11 am, play Golf in the lunch hours and leave by 3 pm have to stay for the entire duration of office.
Those who used to earn hundreds of crores by bribes in appointment of government class-3 and class-4 officers during interviews have nowhere to go as interviews have been abolished and appointment is based on online results. Again, Modi knows that he is taking on the strongest lobby of middlemen – those who act as brokers in central govt recruiting?
Another biggest disruption has been DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer). The corruption in distribution of LPG, Kerosene, Scholarship, MNREGA wages, PDS etc by fake accounts due to subsidy leakage have been stopped to an extent that government is saving 60,000 crore annually. Modi was aware that this disruption will make all the middlemen, traders and dealers engaged in this activity since decades angry.
Modi is very well aware of what he is doing! He doesn’t need to be on back foot. Winning elections must never be the sole aim of any leader who is determined to clean the country of its corruption. Had he just wanted to win elections, there was no need for so many disruptive policies one by one. He could have literally let these black practices going on and not touched this powerful lobby of middlemen and traders.
These decisions have not been taken for winning elections; they have been taken for the country’s health in the long run. Not only the collection of tax through GST increased, but also the increase of Income tax they have to pay on their declared turnover under GST would grow.
GST being very new and the country being huge, there are some technical issues and timely reviews are needed, which the government has assured right since the beginning. But the overall outrage against GST in entirety is just a display of frustration from traders who now have to pay taxes is not warranted.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
