Venue: Room No.103, Central Block                                                           Time: 12.00-1.00 Date: 1-02-2018

The students of II MA Applied Economics conducted a panel discussion on GST on 1st of February 2018, in the final year applied economics class. The session was moderated by Kamala Pillai and there were four speakers were Santosh Jose, Nivedita Satish, Makaji Ingle and Neha Bharadwaj from II MA Economics. The session began with a brief introduction to GST by the moderator. Goods and Service Tax is an indirect tax levied on the supply of goods and services. GST Law has replaced many indirect tax laws that previously existed in India. The first speaker Santhosh Jose discussed on the history of sales tax and its implications on the economy which resulted in the need for a universal tax system represented by the goods and service tax. The next speaker, Makaji , spoke about value added tax , which was the predecessor to GST and its implications to the current tax system in Indian economy. Nivedita Sathish spoke about the impact of the new tax system on the agricultural as well as industrial sector of the economy. She was of the opinion that this new tax regime has actually reduced the growth rate of the unorganised sector which can have huge ramifications on the industrial employment. The last speaker Neha spoke about the overall effects of the GST on the Indian Economy and its long term implications on the economy. It is too early to predict the final effects of GST but as far as  it has been, the impact of GST has been positive and has reduced the tax burden on the people by removing the cascading effect and replacing taxes. After the view points expressed by four panelists, the floor was open for discussion. The session was concluded by the moderator by summarizing the points of the four panelists.