KOLKATA: President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government for rolling out the goods and services tax. Thanking the PM and Union finance minister Arun Jaitley , Mukherjee said it had been a dream since the days of Jaswant Singh, finance minister in former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Cabinet.“I introduced in 2011 the Constitution Amendment Bill (as FM). But I could not finish it. I thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi and finance minister Arun Jaitley for seeing it through. The process of engagement had started and it was not abrupt,”Mukherjee said while speaking at the Global Summit 2017, organised by The Institute of Cost Accountants of India.“Tomorrow midnight when the prime minister will launch goods and services tax, whole of India will come under one taxation. This is one tax, one nation. I thank the prime minister and the finance minister for making GST possible,”President Mukherjee added, “It shows that we want to take everyone along. It shows that we may be late, but we are steady.”President Mukherjee recalled how, as finance minister, he tried to implement it.“This was a dream since the days of Jaswant Singh, the finance minister of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. We too tried to have GST. In 2011, I introduced Constitution amendments, but we could not implement it,” said President Mukherjee.Mukherjee said the other major reform brought in by PM Modi was the presentation of budget on February 1 instead of February 28.