Assocham addressed a letter to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asking him to defer the rollout of GST, as the IT network was not yet prepared for it and could have difficulty in complying with the new indirect tax regime.

Assocham elaborated on this saying that non-familiarity with IT tools, among other things, is delaying the migration to the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) portal, and also that the server was “under maintenance” for existing assessees. Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat wondered “whether the IT infrastructure (had) been appropriately tested” and whether it had been adapted to the current phase of the GST migration.

The new GST is scheduled to be implemented from July 1, but reports of glitches in the GSTN software having been pouring in.