Nirmala Sitharaman chairs 46th GST council meet ahead of Union Budget 2022

The 46th meeting of the Central Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, chaired by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, is underway in New Delhi on Friday.

This convention attains special significance as it comes days ahead of Sitharaman presenting the much-anticipated Union Budget 2022-23 on February 1, for which she has been holding a series of pre-budget consultations with stakeholders.

According to an official statement, Union ministers of state in the finance department  Pankaj Chaudhary and Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad are both present at the GST Council meeting during the day. It is also being attended by finance ministers of all states and Union territories, besides senior government officials.

The 2022-23 Union Budget of India will be presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, 2022.

This will be the fourth budget of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government in its second tenure. The 2021-22 budget, presented on 1st February this year, was the first one to be presented orally due to the ongoing coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.

Sitharaman chaired pre-budget consultations with the finance ministers of states and Union territories (with legislature) in New Delhi this week, which was attended by the aforementioned Union ministers of state for finance, chief ministers, deputy chief ministers, finance ministers, and other ministers and senior officers from the states and Union territories (with legislature) and the central government.

According to an official release, the Union finance secretary welcomed all the participants to the deliberation and informed the importance of this particular consultation meeting.