New Delhi, Apr 12 (KNN) Batting for the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector, Senior Congress Leader and Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the wise and correct date for GST rollout would be October 1 as millions of MSMEs have to adjust to the new regime.

Calling the Centre's bid to roll out GST by July 1 as "impractical and undesirable", Chidambaram asked the government to push the date of its introduction to October 1.

"The goal of July 1 (for introduction of GST) is impractical as well as undesirable. Millions of micro, small and medium enterprises have to adjust to the new regime... In my view, the wise and correct date would be October 1," he said.

Stating that many businessmen may simply have no in-house talent or skill to comply with the provisions of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) law, he added that the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) has to prove itself in a trial run and "a very large number of returns have to be tried in a trial and that must be proved".

Allow a trial run of the GST and give enough time to businesses, service providers as well as sellers of goods to adjust to the new tax regime so that when it is ultimately rolled out, it is reasonably smooth, Chidambaram said.

"They must implement GST with a benign hand, there must be forbearance. Thousands of people will make mistakes but if on every mistake, the tax official is unleashed on the unsuspecting tax-payer, there will be push back, there will be a backlash," he said.

Chidambaram, however, said that in medium to long term, GST will be extremely beneficial to the country, but in the short term "it might bring us less benefit than the government claims. But I think it will bring us some benefit".