'GST Filing May Get a Major Dent if Chinese Imports are Stopped'

The country's Goods and Service Tax e-platform may face serious issues, if India is unable to procure electronic hardware equipment from China, Goa's Transport Minister and the state's official representative in the GST Council Mauvin Godinho said.

Godinho, who was addressing a press conference at the State Secretariat to launch a state Transport Ministry app, also said, that the Covid-19 crisis and the shrinking of imports could give a fillip to indigenous manufacturing of hardware and other equipment, which India used to otherwise import.

"I am also worried about the national level because I sit in the GST Council meeting," Godinho said, adding that the hardware equipment which is required for filing of some e-forms was imported from China.

"If that equipment has not been procured, I am afraid we will have to face a serious problem because the GST functions on an e-platform. And if we are not able to procure hardware from China, obviously that is going to affect, just like the Zuari bridge," Godinho told media.

The Zuari bridge, which Godinho refers to is an under-construction bridge project spanning the banks of the Zuari river in South Goa, whose construction has been hampered on account of the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact it has had on import of the required material, especially from China.

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"I am for one worried about the Zuari bridge. Because I also want it to be completed as soon as possible," Godinho said.

The Transport Minister also said that the pandemic, its impact on international trade and the ongoing tension with China could have a silver lining.

"This particular thing of not getting equipment from China... our scientists, our engineers, our technical workforce will rise to the occasion and we may be standing better and much stronger, than we are doing with the necessary imports. So we may suffer temporarily," Godinho said.