West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra was unanimously elected as the new chairman of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on Goods and Services Tax (GST). The meeting was chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Mitra, who could not attend the meeting due to illness, was informed about his elevation by Jaitley over the phone. The committee is tasked with framing the rules for the roll-out of the GST regime, which will subsume all indirect taxes and create one national market across the country.  Mitra was Secretary General of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) before he joined politics in 2011.