Patna: Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Friday directed the commercial taxes department to discuss with traders and stakeholders and encourage them to file GST returns.
The officials have also been asked to find the problems plaguing small traders in filing returns and resolve them at the earliest.
Modi, who heads the group of ministers drafted to identify problems in the functioning of the GST network, held the meeting with the Bihar officials before leaving for Bangalore to attend the fourth meeting of the GST network. Officials from all the 50 circles of commercial taxes department, in which the state has been divided for tax administration, attended it.
"We organised a series of meeting with dealers, chartered accountants and lawyers dealing with taxation issues in all the 50 circles. Now the officials would have one-to-one interaction with the maximum number of stakeholders to pinpoint their problems for quick resolution, a senior official told The Telegraph about the steps to be taken by the commercial taxes department following Modi's orders.
The official said one facilitation centre had been made functional in all the 50 circles and traders facing any problem in filing GST returns could use this facility for free. The centres have Internet service in addition to technical assistance for traders.
Eight additional centres have also been set up at places with more number of GST registered traders, including three in Patna and one each in Muzaffarpur and Ara.
Bihar has 2.23 lakh GST registered traders in Bihar of which 32,864 have opted for the composition scheme, and only 46.4 per cent filed returns in September. The percentage of such traders was 75 in July when the GST had come into force and came down to 49 per cent in August.
"Encouraging the registered dealers to file returns is a challenge and field officials have been directed to be proactive in addressing doubts of dealers," the official said.