DW BUREAU / Chandigarh

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday said the panchayat elections will be held soon even as the state Assembly passed a Bill aimed to hold elections for sarpanch and panch without symbols of political parties. On the concluding day of the three-day Punjab Vidhan Sabha here, the Punjab Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2024 was tabled in the House. Mann said the panchayat elections will be contested by candidates without party symbols.

This will remove "groupism" in villages and ensure holistic development of rural areas, he said. Mann said any village which will elect panchayats unanimously will get a grant of Rs 5 lakh cash along with a stadium, school or hospital.

The state government wants to strengthen the Panchayati Raj system for which honest people must be elected.

The House also passed three other Bills -- Punjab Goods and Service Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2024, Punjab Fire and Emergency Service Bill, 2024 and Punjab Agricultural Produce Markets (Amendment) Bill, 2024.

Speaking on the Punjab Fire and Emergency Service Bill, 2024, Mann said it will pave the way for further ensuring women empowerment in the state. This Bill was the need of hour to ensure that women become an active partner in the socio-economic growth of the country, he said.

Required amendments are being made in the rules for changing the physical criteria for recruitment of women in the fire-fighting staff. None of the previous governments had bothered to change these rules because they were least bothered about the people and their problems, said Mann while speaking on the Bill.

Punjab will be the first state in the country to recruit women in the fire-fighting staff, he claimed.

These reforms were the need of hour as in view of skyscrapers and congested roads in interiors, the latest type of vehicles are to be provided to the fire brigade, he said. The Punjab Fire and Emergency Service Bill, 2024 aims to ensure that all structures in the state have adequate fire prevention and life safety measures, streamlining compliance and increasing ease of business in the state, according to the Bill.

Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema, who presented the Punjab Goods and Service Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2024, said value added tax will be imposed on the extra neutral alcohol used for human consumption.

He further said the amendment in the law also allows that a trader who has been summoned by the tax authorities can be represented by his counsel.

Those traders, who filed incomplete or incorrect tax returns from 2017 till 2022, can avail waiver in interest and penalty if they pay pending tax due by March 2025, he said.

Further, the notice period for taxpayers has been extended from 30 days to 60 days for future adjudication, simplifying the procedures and enhancing tax compliance, said Cheema.

He said when the GST system was introduced in 2017, a 14 per cent year on year growth-based compensation for states was agreed upon until July, 2022.

However, he lamented that the previous governments made no efforts to revive the state's economy over the next five years, relying solely on compensation.

"In contrast, the current government, under Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann's leadership, has initiated various measures, including establishing a tax intelligence unit, launching schemes like 'Bill Layo Inam Pao', to enhance tax compliance. As a result, the state has seen a significant increase in GST collections," he added.

Cheema pointed out that the GST system's implementation led to the subsuming of all kinds of taxes levied by the state.

Previously, the state used to receive approximately Rs 7,000 crore from the central government on food grains which would have increased to around Rs 10,000 crore by now. "It now stands subsumed in GST. Unfortunately, the previous state government failed to secure compensation for this significant loss," said Cheema. Punjab Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khuddian tabled the Punjab Agricultural Produce Markets (amendment) Bill, 2024, which aims to increase time for reconstitution of 94 market committees from July 2023 to July 2025.

If still all the market committees are not reconstituted within the stipulated time, the government appointed administrator will continue to function until the market committee is reconstituted, according to the Bill. However, the Congress opposed the Bill with party leader Partap Singh Bajwa saying, "It is an indirect way of the government to hand over powers (of market committees) to officers instead of elected representatives."
(editor@dailyworld.in)