56th GST Council Meeting begins in New Delhi: Who are the members and what is their voting power?

The GST Council is the governing body for Goods and Services Tax implementation in India, comprising representatives from both the central and state governments. The GST Council consists of 33 members from the Central Government and State Governments. They are:

1. The Union Finance Minister (Chairperson)

2. The Union Minister of State in charge of Revenue or Finance

3. The Minister in charge of Finance or Taxation or any other Minister nominated by each State Government

4. Any person nominated by the Governor of the State where there is a proclamation of emergency under Article 356 of the Constitution of India.

A meeting of the Council is duly constituted when it is presided over by the Chairperson with at least one-half of the Members of the Council being present.

Here is the list of 33 members of the GST Council:

Chairperson: Nirmala Sitharaman

Union Minister of State (Finance): Pankaj Chaudhary

Members from the States:

1. Andhra Pradesh: Payyavula Keshav

2. Arunachal Pradesh: Chowna Mein

3. Assam: Ajanta Neog

4. Bihar: Samrat Chaudhary

5. Chhattisgarh: O.P. Choudhary

6. Delhi: Rekha Gupta

7. Goa: Pramod Sawant

8. Gujarat: Kanubhai Desai

9. Haryana: J.P Dalal

10. Himachal Pradesh: Harshvardhan Chauhan

11. UT of Jammu & Kashmir: Omar Abdullah

12. Jharkhand: Rameshwar Oraon

13. Karnataka: Krishna Byre Gowda

14. Kerala: K.N. Balagopal

15. Madhya Pradesh: Jagdish Devda

16. Maharashtra: Ajit Pawar

17. Manipur: Sapam Ranjan Singh

18. Meghalaya: Conrad Sangma

19. Mizoram: Lalduhawma

20. Nagaland: K.G. Kenye

21. Odisha: Mohan Charan Majhi

22. Puducherry: K. Lakshminarayanan

23. Punjab: Harpal Singh Cheema

24. Rajasthan: Gajendra Singh

25. Sikkim: B.S. Panth

26. Tamil Nadu: Thangam Thennarasu

27. Telangana: Bhatti Vikramarka Mallu

28. Tripura: Pranjit Singha Roy

29. Uttarakhand: Prem Chand Agarwal

30. Uttar Pradesh: Suresh Kumar Khanna

31. West Bengal: Chandrima Bhattacharya

Voting mechanism

The GST Council takes decisions through a consensus-based approach during its meetings. When any proposal is put to a vote, the Central Government holds a one-third weightage of the total votes cast in the GST Council meeting. The votes of all the State Governments taken together have a weightage of two-thirds of the total votes cast in the meeting. Every decision of the meeting is taken only if the total weighted votes of the Members present and voting in favour of the proposal is equal to or greater than three-fourths.

As many as 55 meetings of the GST Council have been held so far, and its decisions have had a significant impact on the GST implementation in India. According to the rules, the Council is to meet at least once a quarter.

The 56th GST Council is meeting in New Delhi for two days beginning September 3 (Wednesday) to discuss the proposed pruning of rates. During this meeting, the GST Council is expected to discuss the recommendations of the various Groups of Ministers it has constituted, including the issue of reforming the GST system into a two-rate structure in line with the Central Government’s recommendations.