The proposal was cleared during the civic standing committee meeting, with several members questioning the need for a two-year supply of papers to the department when GST is likely to come into effect this year.
While the central government is pushing hard to roll out the Goods and Services Tax (GST) later in the year, with the city also expecting to switch directly to GST from Octroi when it is implemented, the BMC on Tuesday passed a proposal worth Rs 31 crore for the supply of various types of papers to the Octroi department for the next two years.
The proposal was cleared during the civic standing committee meeting, with several members questioning the need for a two-year supply of papers to the department when GST is likely to come into effect this year.
While the GST roll-out deadline of April 1, 2017, is unlikely to be achieved, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said there is a Constitutional compulsion to have a GST in place before September 16, 2017.
"It is clear that the central government is working hard to implement GST, which will abolish the Octroi system. Even if it gets delayed, it will be implemented within two years," said Congress corporator Asif Zakaria, adding that there would be no use for the papers once GST comes into practice.
GST will subsume a host of indirect taxes levied by the Centre and the states, including excise duty, service tax, value-added tax, entry tax, luxury tax, octroi and entertainment tax.
According to a BMC official, the corporation collects Rs 18-20 crore in cash daily. With the implementation of GST, five Octroi nakas (entry points) will shut permanently.
Interestingly, the proposal was tabled in the fourth quarter of 2016-17. "A two-year supply of papers cannot be used in a small span, and the remaining papers will have to be sold as scrap. It is clear that after GST is implemented, the papers will have no use. The civic body will float another tender to sell these costly papers as scrap," said another member.
The various types of paper include copier, art paper, craft paper, cover paper, assorted color copy paper, maplitho paper, white pulp board, chit paper, drawing paper and lucky parchment paper.
Other committee members also questioned the need for Rs 31-crore worth of papers when the whole country is moving towards cashless and paperless transactions. "The proposal shows that civic body is not mentally prepared to move towards a paperless system," said another committee member.
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