The government had been working on intervening to hold the price lines post the implementation of the GST regime. Even though the taxes had been going down, the prices had been rising. There were instances when the traders had been exploiting the ignorance of people on GST and charging more money. There were cases where the items that had no connection with the GST had been hiked.
The government still had the full right of intervention and controlled the prices. There have been cases where various traders who had monopolies were piling on GST over the old taxes such as GST and making wrong use of the public. The government is focused on taking steps on dealing with the complaints that have been arising.
Kerala’s finance minister TM Thomas Isaac commented that the price rise post the goods and services tax implementation was a grave issue that needs some solution and also he was concerned that the central government’s reaction to state government’s issues was not positive or helpful.
The central government had asked the Kerala state government to give more time to the traders as the input credit would not show anytime before September. The state government had asked for stringent rules and regulations to control prices post the implementation of the GST.
They had asked the central government to organize a meeting with all the stakeholders and traders to make it clear that the MRP would go down as the taxes had reduced. The center as of now had not given any heads-up.
The finance minister of Kerala has asked the state metrology department to intensify the inspections and see if the traders had been charging more than the actual prices.
Kerala government has decided to declare a list of commodities, their earlier prices, the reduction in taxes and the new market prices and present that in the upcoming council meeting. This would eventually put some pressure on the center to intervene.
