Responding to the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s “Act of God” remark on the impact of coronavirus on the economy, Congress leader P Chidambaram said, “Don’t blame God for a man-made disaster.”
Responding to the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s “Act of God” remark on the impact of coronavirus on the economy, Congress leader P Chidambaram said, “Don’t blame God for a man-made disaster.”
In an interview given to NDTV, the former finance minister called governement’s relief package a “joke” , a day after the first quarter GDP plummeted by whopping 23.9 %.
“Don’t blame god. In fact, you should thank god. God has blessed the farmers of the country. The pandemic is a natural disaster. But you are compounding the pandemic, a natural disaster, with a man-made disaster,” Chidambaram told NDTV, when asked what advice he would like to give to the Finance Minister.
On Thursday, the central government said the coronavirus pandemic has hit the Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection resulting in the shortfall is Rs 2.35 lakh crore. The announcement was made after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired a GST council meeting.
Sitharaman, interacting with the media after the meeting, said the coronavirus pandemic is an “Act of God” and it may result in contraction of the economy this fiscal.
“The annual GST compensation requirement is estimated to be around Rs 3 lakh crore, and cess collection is expected to be around Rs 65,000 crore, leaving us with an annual compensation gap of Rs 2.35 lakh crore,” Revenue Secretary at Finance Ministry, Ajay Bhushan Pandey said.
During the April to July quarter, total GST compensation to be paid is Rs 1.5 lakh crore, he added. “This is so because there was hardly any GST Collection in April and May,” he stressed.
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