Reduce GST on Covid equipment: Manpreet

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 25

Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal has taken a strong exception to the agenda issued for the GST Council meeting scheduled for later this week, which has failed to take into account the ravaging pandemic. Calling the agenda for the meeting “mundane and not dealing with any of the substantive issues that confront us”, he has demanded that all aberrations and distortions that have crept into the GST must be overcome.

In a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Badal has also sought the removal of all anomalies in the remaining compensation period of one year, besides demanding GST tax cuts on essential Covid supplies. The meeting is scheduled for May 28, and is being held after seven months.

Highlighting the high taxation on the goods and equipment required to fight Covid, Badal has demanded that Basic Customs Duty (BCD) and GST be slashed. “Many goods face BCD ranging up to 20 per cent and GST up to 18 per cent, besides a social welfare surcharge of 10 per cent and IGST of 2-3 per cent on taxable value…. It is baffling that despite the crisis that our country finds itself in, with millions of people suffering the consequences of Covid and inadequate health infrastructure, high taxes continue to be applied on basic essentials needed to overcome this life-threatening disease,” he has written in the letter.