‘Every GST item scrutinised’: FM Sitharaman explains what went behind GST 2.0 focused at middle class, farmers

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said that drafting the new GST proposal was a “fascinating” and “absolutely rewarding” exercise for her.

In an interaction with Network18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi, Sitharaman said the focus of GST 2.0 was to review commodities consumed by farmers and the middle class.

“I had to do a dredging kind of an exercise where every item which comes under GST had to be looked at – not just by their codes or names but also in terms of regrouping them from the point of view of daily use items, that which is consumed by the middle-class or poor in particular, we looked at those that are going to hit the farmers and so on,” Sitharaman said.

She further added: “Eventually, daily-use items or items which are necessary for the transition of India from emerging, developing economy to a Viksit Bharat cannot be on the back of just the approach that we need more infrastructural development, but also that the aspirations of the growing families will have to be met.”