The Goods and Services Tax bill got the unanimous vote in the Uttar Pradesh Legislature and was further proposed to the legislative council, being a money bill. The legislation was returned by a voice vote, as the state assembly approved of it unanimously.
Uttar Pradesh is now standing in line with other state like, Uttrakhand, Jharkhand, Telangana, Bihar and Rajasthan, supporting the indirect tax regime.
During the discussion on the GST bill Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that adopting the GST is a revolutionary movement, by the Modi government towards wider economic reform, which is beneficial for both the traders and consumers. Opposing the discussion Nitin Agarwal and Sanjay Garg (Samajwadi Party), Uma Shankar (Bahujan Samaj Party) and Ajay Kumar Laloo (Congress) suggested that the small traders should be exempted from few of the provisions proposed in the bill. But other than this they were all in favor of passing the bill.
Few members of the opposition party were not in the favor of jail term in case of failure of filing online returns three times a month. Instead they suggested that monetary fine should be levied. Chief Minister cleared their fears by explaining that the problem of lack of computer knowledge and filing online returns three times a month, has been taken care of and that the small traders will benefit from it. He also added that the Centre will compensate the state for the loss of revenue with the GST coming into effect.