Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Jul 3: "Some people have made it a habit to maintain two sets of accounts and escape from paying taxes properly. The central government is prepared to face hostility from such evaders in the interests of the nation and its people," said union energy minister, Piyush Goyal.

Speaking about goods and services tax (GST) at a programme organized at Sanjay Nagar here by BJP on Sunday July 2, the minister, who noted that the attitude of the people who have made it a practice to avoid paying taxes, needs to be changed. "During GST implementation, initially we may encounter hiccups and bottlenecks. Glorifying minor mistakes that might happen during early stages of implementation and spreading a wrong notion about GST based on them is wrong. Everyone should work as harbingers of change in tax structutre by making GST a success," he requested.

Goyal observed that India became politically united because of the efforts of Sardar Patel. "Now, our country is getting economically united by way of GST. It would not be entirely correct to say that this was possible on account of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi alone. Because, all the parties including Congress, Left Front, TMC etc have supported this idea. We could finally roll out GST on account of wholehearted support of 125 crore Indians," he narrated.

The minister blamed Karnataka government for not cooperating with the centre in the matter of allowing right of way to bring power from other places when there is power shortage here. He said that his repeated discussions with the state government and its energy minister have failed to convince the state to change its stance, adding that the centre cannot help if the state is not inclined to upgrade its facilities.