Under stress, SGST officials suffer heart related ailments

Jaipur: Officials of the Commercial Tax Department (SGST) are under immense stress these days. Work pressure has claimed the life of one Deputy Commissioner level officer, who died of heart attack while one underwent a stunt surgery and two officers are undergoing treatment for heart related ailments. Apart from this, two officers posted as Assistant Commercial Tax Officer suffered brain stroke and are undergoing treatment. Many officers are ignoring pain in their heart. However, the GST law alone is not responsible for the condition of the officers.

The GST on domestically sold goods and services was implemented in 2017. Since it is a new law, many amendments have been made in it. There is a big problem in the GST law regarding filing of returns and recovery of dues. The situation is that despite the amendments, there is a lot of resentment regarding GST among the taxpayers and the officers collecting GST due to the desired amendments not being made. Since the GST law has fixed deadlines for filing returns and penalizing taxpayers on the basis of technical mistakes, it has increased stress on officers.

Department officials said that work was always there but there is a shortage of supporting staff and officers.