Why in news:

• In order to encourage the culture of consumers seeking bills for services and commodities that they purchase and avail of, the central government’s invoice promotion scheme, ‘Mera Bill, Mera Adhikar’, has been launched by the state government of Haryana.

Key Points:

• The scheme was launched in Gurugram by Haryana deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala along with the Union revenue secretary.
• According to the concerned officials of the state government, this scheme will encourage the culture of generating GST bills and will benefit all stakeholders in the ecosystem. Apart from Haryana, the scheme was also be launched in Assam and Gujarat and the three Union Territories of Puducherry, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu as a pilot project, which will be expanded gradually across the country,.
• Regarding the particulars of the scheme, the state government has pointed out that a corpus of Rs 30 crore has been made available towards the fund under this initiative on an annual basis. Every quarter, there will be two awards for consumers, worth Rs 1 crore each, and that translates to eight such awards of Rs 1 crore a year, and these will be given to the winners through a draw of lots. Every month, there will be 10 awards of Rs 1 lakh each, and 80 awards of Rs 10,000 each.
• According to the state government, the purpose of this scheme is to boost GST awareness among consumers, who shall be motivated to seek bills and ensure that these transactions are part of the GST system. The GST taxation system was launched in 2016 and the results have been impressive, as per the state government officials. The tax collection has increased while the tax regime has also been simplified. The average rate of taxation has come to around 12% and it is likely to reduce further.