By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, May 11, 2017 : The Odisha Cabinet headed by chief minister, Naveen Patnaik on Thursday approved the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill. The Bill is slated to be ratified by the state legislative assembly at a two-day special session beginning from on May 18.

After the enactment of GST Bill, the new tax would be levied on all items except six products. Alcohol and petroleum products have been kept beyond the purview of the proposed tax regime. The five petroleum products on which the State GST will be exempted include Petrol, Diesel, Crude Oil, Aviation Fuel and Natural Gas.

State government also gave its nod to increase electricity duty on captive power plants (CPPs) from 30 paisa to 55 paisa per unit. This step will bring in incremental revenue of Rs 875 crore to the state exchequer every year.

“The GST can be implemented now after which there will be only 3 taxes instead of 17 taxes of the State and Centre. The three taxes are the Central GST, State GST and Integrated GST,” finance secretary, Tuhinkant Pandey told media persons.

Among other proposals in the cabinet agenda, the move to exempt 11 railway projects from stamp duty got approved as well.

The cabinet meeting which was the first one after the ministry reshuffle also cleared 10 other proposals. The cabinet has decided to waive off VAT on ‘Moong Dal’ keeping in mind the interest of the farmers. Moreover, as per Cabinet decision, Markfed will procure ‘Moong Dal’ at a price of Rs 52.25/ Kg. The State government will bear a loss of Rs 2 crore annually in this regard.

“We have decided to exempt VAT for ‘Moong Dal’ farmers. Despite a loss of Rs 2 crore annually, to protect the interests of the farmers we have taken this decision,” said Finance minister, Sashibhushan Behera.

Similarly, the proposal to revise the recruitment and promotion of Village Agricultural Worker (VAW) also got the cabinet nod. Plus-II has now been made the minimum qualification for recruitment of VAW.

Among others, the cabinet cleared the probe commission’s report on Kalinganagar firing.