Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said that inclusion of petroleum products under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime could be done if there is an agreement among the states.
"Once the states agree, we will have petroleum products in the GST," the minister said. The GST Council meeting will be held on February 18.
Speaking at the Post-Budget interactive session with the members of the industry chamber PHDCCI, Sitharaman said that the public expenditure will continue to be kept at a high level so that we are able to keep on to the growth momentum. She said that the effort of the government over the years has been to increase public expenditure.
She said that the government in the 2023-24 Budget increased the capital expenditure by 33 per cent to Rs 10 lakh crore.
"Consistently for the last three-four years, the emphasis has been given on public capital expenditure. We have kept that up in this budget...capital expenditure, clearly can be said as a real focus of this budget," Sitharaman said.
"We wanted to ensure that public capex should continue at an elevated pace so that we can play the anchor role in boosting investments in the economy," she added.
"GST Council to meet on February 18. Fitment Committee will meet to decide on rate reduction on cement as announced by Finance Minister. Currently, there is 28 per cent GST on cement," Vivek Johri, CBIC Chairman said last week.
Nirmala Sitharaman also said that the states were being nudged to carry forward reforms in various sectors, including power and also implement the 'one nation, one ration card' scheme.