CST issue resolved

The Centre and states have resolved the contentious issue of CST compensation with the states agreeing for a lower payment of Rs 34,000 crore for phasing out the Central Sales Tax, a precondition for rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
“The amount of compensation for three years— 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13—was about Rs 34,000 crore. The Centre has agreed to pay this compensation amount to states,” Bihar deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi.
According to the resolution at the meeting on CST issue, the Centre would bear 100% of the loss accrued to states in 2010-11 fiscal on account of lowering of CST. However, for 2011-12 and 2012-13 fiscal, the Centre would give 75% and 50% of the losses to the states. CST, a tax imposed on the interstate movement of goods, was reduced from 4% to 3% in 2007-08 and further to 2% in 2008-09 after the introduction of value-added tax (VAT). The centre had then promised the states that it would bear losses due to reduction of CST. “However, the promises were not kept,” Modi said, adding the Empowered Committee accepted a central proposal to reduce the rate of compensation for early payment. The committee set up by finance minister P Chidambaram to resolve the CST issue had suggested that the payment of Rs 34,000 crore be made to the states towards losses on account of phasing out of CST.
The CST was to be phased out totally after the introduction of GST, which was originally scheduled to be launched from April 2010. Chidambaram recently said that even as GST Bill is unlikely to be passed by April 2013, he hopes to introduce it in the Monsoon session.
The GST rollout has missed several deadlines on account of differences over contentious issue of CST compensation and design of the GST structure between the states and the Centre. Introduced in the Lok Sabha in March 2011, GST Constitution Amendment Bill is with the standing committee on finance. Modi said that the states desire that the GST should be rolled out in next fiscal, failing which they would revert to the CST levy of 4%.
Finance ministers of 13 states—Gujarat, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Chhattishgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Punjab, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Delhi and Haryana attended the meeting while other states were represented by senior finance department officers. The Empowered Committee would deliberate on the GST issue on Tuesday, Modi said.
Chidambaram had earlier said he would outline amendments to the Constitution on GST in his Budget speech if there was consensus among states on the issue.

Mumbai Railways' snippets

Mumbai’s proposed circular arc railway plan to connect CST and Churchgate with rail got a probable push  when the railways and the state government representatives came together to understand the “plan of decongesting south Mumbai using a network of elevated and underground tracks.
The technical study of the master plan developed by city-based engineer Ketan Goradia has been approved by the railway board, which has asked the local railways to look into its feasibility.
Goradia has proposed an arc network to connect the Western Railway (WR) with the Central Railway (CR) to increase access to south Mumbai, apart from eventually creating two dedicated fast tracks—one running clockwise and the other anti-clockwise—between Virar and Kalyan .
The arc network help commuters get from Churchgate to areas like Ballard Pier or Fort, closer to Masjid Bunder.
Besides the CST-Churchgate connectivity, the plan includes a circular railway plan on the Harbour line too. Another suggestion in the master plan is to have platforms with fast and slow trains in the same direction parking on the two sides of an island platform.
To cost about Rs3,000 crore, the project will augment the capacity expected out of the ambitious Rs40,000-crore elevated railways project. “While the elevated railway will take 10 years to be implemented, the arc network project can be completed within two years, thus increasing capacity from the present 70 lakh to 1.2 crore passengers a day,’’ added Goradia.