A very warm welcome to the distinguished dignitaries on and off the dias and my dear members of faculty, students, one and all. We have gathered this morning to take part in what can be described as a single biggest proposed reform that profoundly touches all our lives… All including the 1.2 billion + citizenry.

It is a matter of honor and happiness for me, to be standing here, addressing this gathering, amidst people who have huge experience in identifying, understanding and creating value. Goods and Services Tax policy, has been much deliberated and discussed, and is among foremost focus areas for the reform agenda of immediate past and current Governments. It is sought to be an endeavor to establish an entirely overhauled indirect tax structures and frameworks in a bid to rake in greater tax revenues to the Government. The driving factor for this reform is to expand the tax-payers base while avoiding increased taxes. Most do believe that GST is an idea whose time has come,… well almost! 🙂

To give us clarity on what this means to us – its ramifications to various stakeholders of our economy and thereby to public-at-large, we have a high powered panel of distinguished members from the Industry and Academia.

I sincerely thank our Esteemed Vice Chancellor in-charge, Professor Dr. Anisa Khan, under whose leadership, School of Management’s Department of Commerce has brought us all together today. We are indeed glad and grateful to have you, Ma’am.

Change is inherently fraught with a certain degree of unknown and unseen. Change also signals possibilities. And it is this unknown, grey-areas of sorts, that our very experienced dignitaries would throw light on and help us get a grip on the possibilities and impact. With his vast experience of having provided leadership to not just his own, but to most of industry as CII Pondicherry’s President, Thiru Vijayaraghavan, we are eager to have your reflections on this topic. As most of us could gather from the public utterances of members of our polity and industry, there is quite a localised context & impact to this largely unifying and standardizing proposed reform. We rely on Dr. Ramakrishnan, Joint Director, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, to help us understand the impact this will have on Government revenues, programs and governance mandates. Dr. Rajan, member of our fraternity and Former Principal of Tagore Arts College and Mrs. Sujatha, Senior Finance Controller, Parsen Polymers Pvt Ltd, we are indeed eagerly awaiting to listen to your expert and experiential reflections on this topic.

May I compliment and congratulate, our Dr. Natarajan, Head – Department of Commerce, under whose able guidance, vision and enterprise, this enviable opportunity to come together today for this event. Thank You, Department of Commerce, for this very timely event.

I thank you for giving me this opportunity to deliver the presidential address here today and look forward to an absolutely high value adding deliberation and discussions throughout the event.

Good day!