Sensex, Nifty consolidate as investors say GST Bill priced in

Moneycontrol Bureau12:20 pm Revenue secretary on GST: While addressing press conference after the GST Bill passed in Rajya Sabha, Revenue secretary, Hasmukh Adhia said establishment of legal framework needed for GST roll-out by April 2017.

He expects approval of at least 16 states in next 30 days and all the GST bills to come before Parliament in winter session.

Adhia said 17 states gave their back-end work to GST Network and should be completed by November, adding 17.3 lakh Central Board of Excise and Customs officers & 30,000 officers under states will have to be trained.Also read - Economy can grow by over 8% after GST rollout: Shaktikanta Das12:00 pm Market Check: Equity benchmarks continued to consolidate in noon trade with the Nifty hovering around the 8550 level as investors say the passage of GST Bill has already priced in.

"With the Govt hoping to implement GST by 1 April 2017, we think implementation challenges will now gain prominence and Q4FY17 can be particularly volatile," Sanjay Mookim of Bank of America Merrill Lynch said.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 50.14 points at 27747.65 and the Nifty gained 9.25 points at 8554.10 while the broader markets continued to outperform. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap rose over 0.4 percent on strong breadth. About 1425 shares advanced against 926 declining shares on the BSE.