The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has approved the controlling stake of the Central Government and state government in the Goods and Service Tax Network ( GSTN ).
The Government likely to increase the stake in the Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN) from current 49% to at least 60%.
This is done with a motive of the drive out the fear regarding the ownership of those company which handles IT infrastructure and systems related to the Goods and Services Tax, should reside with the state.
Finance Minister while reviewing the files reportedly opinioned that government should be the repository of the data provided by companies so that there is no fear of a data breach.
Currently, 51% of ownership in GST Network is in the hands of the private financial institution. So the Government executed the plan to reduce the controlling stake from private parties and making more participants from their side.
This is mainly done with an object of sensitive GST data should not reside in private hands. The process of taking the stake in GSTN by the government is a long pending one and many more political parties questioned the sense of controlling and handling the critical data’s off in India’s tax process being vested with private entities.
Presently central government and state government having 24.5% each stake of shareholding in GSTN while the rest of shareholding are HDFC (10%), HDFC Bank (10%), ICICI Bank (10 %), NSE Strategic Investment Company (10 %) and LIC Housing Finance Limited (11 %).
GSTN has been primarily established with an authorized capital of Rs.10 crore and UIDAI chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey is its chairman.
