No time for software testing now: GSTN chairman Navin Kumar

We are very, very stressed now. We are working 28 hours a day, says Navin Kumar

Latest news : A week ahead of the goods and services tax (GST) roll-out, a visibly stressed chairman of the GST Network (GSTN), NAVIN KUMAR, says that it (the IT backbone of the GST) will be ready by July 15. Although confident of the software, Kumar tells Dilasha Seth it will stabilise over three-four months from the GST introduction. Edited excerpts:

With a week to go for the roll-out, what are the thoughts on this? Are you nervous?

We are very, very stressed now. We are working 28 hours a day.

Are you being flooded with calls and messages from industry and traders?

Industry generally talks to the government, but, yes, we keep getting tweets and messages. There was some problem when enrolment was on and the tax department cancelled a lot of registered service taxpayers that had got provisional IDs as they were apparently not active. These 50-60 people lined up at our office. We then referred the matter to the tax department and it was resolved.

How confident are you of the GSTN system? Have you been able to conclude testing the software?

It should be a stable system. Problems that surfaced during the first phase of the testing have been resolved. We did the testing on the basis of the rules that came in December. After that, some changes were made to the rules. Those changes we have absorbed now, so there is no time to do beta testing for that. Other than that, we have done all other tests. So, we are fairly confident of the system.

Read this: Full GST rate list: Here are the tax rates for all goods and services.