THIRUVANNATHAPURAM: Minister Thomas Isaac has informed in the Assembly that there will be delay in implementing CESS since some procedures are yet to be complemented.

“Though Cess was announced in the budget, a detailed notification in this regard should be published. After this, some changes will have to be brought to the software once the GST council requests for the same. The CESS will come into effect only after that. The campaign that there will be big price rise for all commodities is not true,” he said.

The minister said when the GST was implemented, there was reduction in the taxes of all commodities by 5 to 10 pc. Once the cess is implemented, people will lose only one per cent from this. Also there is a campaign that the cinema ticket charges will go up since local self-governing bodies have been asked to levy entertainment tax on cinema tickets. This is not true. The tax which was 28 pc earlier came down to 18 pc when GST was implemented.

This 10 pc concession has been converted to entertainment tax,” he said, denying that prices had been hiked.
He added that it was during UDF tenure that VAT was increased from 12 pc to 14.5 pc.

Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) projects.

The minister said that KIIFB projects will be completed on time bound manner. The government had already given permission to 64pc projects in 2016-2017 and 74 pc in 2017-18.

250 crore under Ockhi package was allotted for Dolosse and sea wall. Rs 115 crore was sanctioned for Parappanangadi harbour and Rs 100 crore was given for Chetthi harbour.