Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday claimed the "callous attitude" of the Narendra Modi-led government in rolling out GST and demonetisation had sent the Indian economy in a tailspin and brought it to the brink of meltdown.
"Demonetisation and GST rollout are perfect examples of ineptitude and lack of depth in the Modi Government. Their callous attitude has sent the Indian economy in tailspin and has brought it to the brink of a meltdown," he said on Twitter.
Gandhi tagged a news report quoting the Comptroller and Auditor General, in its first-ever audit of the Goods and Services Tax, that the government had failed to try out the system before its rollout, leading to inadequate compliance mechanisms, and lower tax revenues.
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Government auditor CAG on Tuesday said that GSTN, the technology backbone for the goods and services tax, should test the system and fix the deficiencies before rolling out to the public.
In view of the magnitude of the GST and its pan-India impact, it is all the more necessary that due care is taken both in development and testing of the system before roll-out, said the CAG report tabled in Parliament.
"The issues brought out in IT audit also pointed towards the need for GSTN to re-examine prioritisation of development of various functionalities, strengthen their root cause analysis and testing process to ensure that critical deficiencies in application are detected and rectified before roll-out to public," it said.
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Commenting on the GST implementation, the report said one significant area where the full potential of GST has not been achieved is the roll-out of the simplified tax compliance regime.
(With inputs from PTI)
