Telangana Legislature special session on Tuesday to ratify GST Bill

Hyderabad: A special session of Telangana Legislative Assembly and Council will be convened on Tuesday to ratify the Constitution Amendment Bill for Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Governor ESL Narasimhan has also issued a notification authorising the Assembly Speaker and Council Chairman to convene both the Houses respectively tomorrow at 11 AM.

State Finance Minister Etela Rajender had earlier said it was decided to pass the bill as Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has assured Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who recently addressed a public meeting at Gajwel, of the state's backing to GST Bill.

"We are not sure if there would be some other government bills tomorrow. But the main agenda would be ratifying the GST Bill," Paturi Sudhakar Reddy, chief whip in Telangana Legislative Council, told PTI.

The total duration of the session will be decided by Business Advisory Committee of the state Assembly tomorrow.

According to a government release issued earlier, the Chief Minister has decided to invite Advocate General Ramakrishna Reddy as a special invitee to the session to give clarifications to the members of both the Houses on the Constitution Amendment bill.

Recently, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley wrote a letter to the Telangana CM requesting him to convene a special session of the Assembly to adopt the Amendment Bill, which was passed by the Parliament.

At least half of the states in the country need to approve the Constitution amendment bill, which has already been ratified by eight state assemblies including Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh.