I think the major challenge is going to be matching up the transactions what the Government has proposed

How is GST a significant milestone for Indian economy?

GST definitely brings a lot of benefits to the Indian economy. As far as the IT industry is concerned, there are certain additional advantages to the IT business, where the businesses and trade, which were not relying on IT yet, would start buying PCs and upgrade their IT systems to comply with the GST norms.

We see a lot of opportunity to the IT industry in the form of demand for IT products. GST will definitely eliminate the cascading effect of previous tax structure, because it eliminates many taxes. GST will bring a simplified, uniform and single tax regime across the regions.

Has your organization implemented GST?

Yes, we are fully equipped and GST compliance. We at Rashi Peripherals are always at the forefront in driving the technology innovation and adapting new market dynamics at a fast pace. We were the only distributor to start GST billing on July 1 itself. That clearly shows our preparedness and proven ability to adapt new changes without hampering business continuity and in order to make goods available across day to day.

What were the operational challenges in implementing GST within the organization?

There were multiple operational challenges during initial days but being an IT company, we have been successful in implementing GST into our ERP system and business processes. While other organizations were planning for the GST compliance, we started with the process in the month of December. Therefore, we could manage the things very efficiently in the last 6 months.

We not only did a smooth migration to GST internally, but we also took care of our partners and helped them in their business transition. We provided education for them for GST implementation and supported them in all aspects. We are open for any kind of support to our partners.

How has GST implementation helped you in terms of ease of doing business?

According to the government, the prime objective of GST is to provide ease of doing business to industries by laying down the foundation for the ‘One Tax, One Nation’ concept in the country. This has helped the industry to some extent. Earlier we used to take care of the logistics based on the locations, but no one can change the entire logistic concept. It could be concentrated one, where you may have lower stock locations, but still it can cater to entire India as there is no implication of CST and entry tax and octroi. Therefore, to that extent, the removal of other taxes has been a boon for the industry and has provided ease of doing business.

How will digital transactions through GST help in increase in business for the company?

Our company was under the digital umbrella even much prior to GST implementation. We had all our sale and purchase transactions, MIS reports in the digital format. This really helped our company to do good and transparent business. If you ask about the process of digitization of business after GST, we have not changed much. We might have upgraded certain MIS reports with respect to GST, which were earlier meant for local taxes.

The increase of digital business will be for people who are going for the digital movement now, and IT companies like us will definitely get benefits out of new IT procurements by these companies.

How will GST support “Make in India” initiative in the long run?

We will have to wait and see what kind of initiatives the government brings under the ‘Make in India’ concept. The government has recently levied basic custom duty(BCD) on some of the products like mobiles to protect the interest of the Indian industries and have reduced the duties on the components. So, basically they are creating a level playing field between imported and locally manufactured products and this is certainly going to help the Make in India Program. However, we are looking forward similar steps for other products as well.

We are waiting for the government’s announcement that how they are going to compensate the industries which are in the backward areas and which were promised excise duty and income tax exemption for 10 years. Once it is done, it will help the government to fulfill their mission of make in India to a large extent.

What are the future challenges with respect to GST which needs to be implemented as per government regulation?

I think the major challenge is going to be matching up the transactions what the Government has proposed. India being the vast country, the volume of transactions is huge, therefore, the matching will be a big task which the Government must realize and act upon accordingly. The next big challenge what I am looking into is the E Transit forms concept announced by the Government. In this concept, businesses will have to create an E way bill for each and every transaction whether local or interstate. So that could be another major challenging thing in the implementation in the coming days.

Krishna Choudhary
Director - Rashi Peripherals

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