GST killing MSMEs, has lost its purpose, says Amit Mitra
Times of India | 25 December 2025
Kolkata: Amit Mitra, principal chief adviser to CM Mamata Banerjee, on Wednesday said GST in its current form had lost the purpose for which it was rolled out.
"At the Bengal Business Conclave, Mamata Banerjee expressed her anguish over the current mess in GST and rightly said that I advised her to support GST. Why did I? In 2009, I brought to her attention that small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) were being strangled by the tentacles of an octopus, with 17 taxes under the VAT regime: Central excise, excise on textiles, CVD, service tax, central surcharge and central cess, etc. Therefore, a single tax regime (GST), if transparently delivered and digitally empowered, will save MSMEs and empower them. Mamata Banerjee, empathetic as she is to MSMEs, took a stand in favour of GST," Mitra posted on X.
Eight year later, he added, a "headline-grabbing, publicity-hungry" central govt launched GST in July 2017, when the computer system was not even close to ready. The GST Network was to process 300 crore invoices uplinked every month, a task in which it failed. This was followed by a series of administrative failures.
He said that till now, 955 notifications, 754 circulars, 192 prescribed forms related to return filing, 86 amendments to CGST Act and 147 amendments to CGST rules had been issued. "Over 2 lakh crore bleeding govt resources, as per govt of India. The tentacles of the octopus are back, throttling MSMEs today due to an incompetent, inept, uncaring central govt. Now, you can understand why Mamata Banerjee is so anguished over GST, which is killing MSMEs. MSMEs consist of 92% of businesses in our nation," Mitra wrote. He added that he has so far written 12 letters to the Union finance minister pointing out anomalies and frauds in GST, but there has been no course correction.