COURTSY HT OCT 17

Kerala won’t press for moving SC on GST row
Rajeev Jayaswal

letters@hindustantimes.com

New Delhi : The Kerala government on Saturday cancelled a meeting to discuss legal options to resolve the Goods and Services Tax (GST) compensation cess issue with the Centre, days after Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman clarified that the central government will borrow ₹1.1 lakh crore from the market on behalf of the states and pass the same as a loan to them.

HT reported on Saturday that with the Centre agreeing to borrow ₹1.1 lakh crore from a special window of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and on-lend it to the states, some of the seven states that disagreed to the initial plan could now sign on. Their main concern was higher interest costs if individual states approached market separately.

“Kerala’s CM puts away scheduled high level meeting to discuss approaching SC [Supreme Court] on GST issue, in the light of new initiative by Union FM. Having amicably settled question of who should borrow, we hope she will address question of how much to borrow through dialogue with state FMs,” Kerala finance minister Thomas Isaac tweeted Saturday