Present row over demonetization is likely forces union finance minister Arun Jaitley to push back from his ambitious plan of grounding it from April 1, 2017. As the entire administration of finance ministry and also trade circles are now per-occupied with facing blows of demonetization, trade circles feels it would be difficult for the government to go ahead with its GST agenda.

Millions of businesses in goods and services will have to be brought into the electronic invoicing and payment systems that the GST Network demands. The training and investment involved in bringing so many small companies up to to speed will be mind-boggling.

There will be another supply chain disruption when big companies reconfigure their vendors based on optimising GST compliance, production and distribution needs. The supply chain is already reeling under the demonetisation shock, and it makes no sense to put SME businesses through the wringer again in the name of GST implementation.

On the other hand, GST is likely to erupt another centre-state tensions over jurisdiction and oversight of GST assesses. Though Arun Jaitley strives hard to bring GST into force from April 1 of this year itself, it was delayed due to hardships created by Congress in Rajya Sabha to get nod of the Parliament for the move.

As the government is already on the mat for not being fully prepared for the cash rush post demonetisation, the last thing it can afford is another fiasco on GST. In the present circumstances, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unlikely prefer to face another confusion on implementation of GST and may ask his finance minister to put it on the back-burner for now, and the focus should be on getting the economy back on the rails Asap.