Times of India, November 04, 2017
Ludhiana: The Panjab University Regional Centre Model Youth Parliament 2017 was organised by the University Institute of Laws, Fountain Chownk on Saturday. The two-day event replicates the proceedings of the lower house of the Parliament in a competitive format.
The session in the house began where the proposed bill on Integrated Goods and Services Tax was proposed by Finance Minister, Kashish Garg from BA LLB, III year of PURC and rebutted by a shadow Finance Minister, Raghav Sharma from PURC. It was followed by speeches and debates of Student Members of Parliament of government and opposition.
Students began with the concerns of the framers of Indian constitution regarding representative parliamentary democracy and how a commendable job it has done in the last 70 years .
Participants also raised questions on matters of urgent public importance. The sessions of the house were dramatic and intense, as participants from government, opposition and allied teams debated on every aspect of law making and governance.
Jatin Saini who is pursuing MBA from LPU, Jalandhar was a speaker of the model Lok Sabha and said that the model Youth Parliament is a platform which would not only sensitise participants about the parliamentary procedures but would also enlighten them about the democratic values and IGST is the hot topic these days. Arushi Gupta and Arun Kumar co- chaired with the speaker.
Sahil Sidhu, who is pursuing BA LLB from PURC echoed his view that though there were 32 kinds of taxes and this GST has reduced the other taxes, still there are other things which need to be sorted out , for instance filing GST thrice a month i.e. 36 returns per year and one external return is chaotic thing for the businessman.
While Prince Sharma, from Amarjeet Singh Memorial Institute of Law, Patiala echoed his view on the transparency of the GST, he highlighted the fact that this destination based tax can still be evaded by the people. On the other hand Gagandeep Singh from the Panjab University, Chandigarh stated that people have doubts about this tax. “I questioned the opposition party about the various schemes introduced but not implemented effectively and efficiently,” he said.
Students also questioned the inclusion of petroleum in the ambit of GST. The first day of the event saw more than 120 participants of 15 various colleges and institutes. The event was inaugurated by Nidharak Singh Brar, commissioner, state information commission, Punjab, and Navin Jain, Commissioner of GST Auditing.
Brar gave the students an inspiring speech where he spoke about politics being a cumulative participation of every citizen of the nation. He spoke about constitution of India and youth’s significant role in the political scenario today.