Even as a group of ministers (GoM) is weighing the proposal of Goods and Services Tax (GST)-waiver on Covid-19 essentials such as vaccines, drugs, testing kits and ventilators, West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra on Friday expressed his apprehensions about the very constitution of the eight-member panel. Other members of the group are—Gujarat deputy chief minister Nitinbhai Patel, Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, Goa transport minister Mauvin Godinho, Kerala finance minister KN Balagopal, Odisha finance minister Niranjan Pujari, Telangana finance minister T Harish Rao and UP finance minister Suresh Kr Khanna. Similarly, GST was proposed on masks and PPEs used by crores of common people and lakhs of health professionals, respectively. Similar was the case of imposing GST on vaccines!,” Mitra said in the letter to Sitharaman on June 4. In a letter to Sitharaman on June 1, Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal said that committees of bureaucrats “could by no means act as an equivalent or substitute of the GSTC” [GST Council].

Source: Hindustan Times June 04, 2021 21:33 UTC