New Delhi: Cuttack MP Bhartruhari Mahtab (BJD) in the Lok Sabha Wednesday urged the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to impress upon the GST Council to exempt handicraft and handloom products from the GST list to ensure welfare of the tribal people.
Mahtab raised the demand when the GST (Compensation to States) Amendment Bill, 2017 came up for discussion in the Lower House. Speaking on behalf of the party, Mahtab said, “I would like to mention that our Chief Minister had written to the Prime Minister stating that Orissa has a large population dependent on handicraft and handlooms and that is not exempted from GST.”
He told the House that before the rollout of GST, the Orissa government had given many exemptions to these industries like exemption from the Value Added Tax (VAT) and the excise duty. However, these were later subjected to taxation under the GST regime, while Khadi products were exempted which were sold through the KVIC centres.
“With the introduction of GST, handloom apparels and handloom fabrics have been taxed at 12 per cent and 5 per cent respectively, while handicrafts are taxed between 12 per cent and 18 per cent. Our state finance minister had batted for exemptions in the GST Council meets,” he said, adding that this is leading to cost escalation and eventually adversely affecting the livelihood of the tribals.
In his speech, Mahtab also urged Jaitley to exempt products made from minor forest produce like sal leaves and sawai grass as the work of value addition on them are done by the tribals. He said that the 5 per cent GST on them should be done away with.
Mahtab also told the House that Orissa had cooperated with the union government in the GST rollout and had regularly taken part in the GST Council meetings and thus the interests of the state should not been
compromised.
He also raised the issue of problems in GST compensation to the state, input tax credit and said that the status of GST success could be better analysed by the end of January next year.
PNN
