Telangana government plea on GST Council agenda

Hyderabad: The pressure that the state government brought on the Centre to cut GST on projects of public importance appears to have worked. The GST Council meeting on Friday in Delhi will include the demand on its agenda. 

The TS government has been demanding that the GST be cut from 12 per cent to 5 per cent on projects like Mission Bhagiratha, Mission Kakatiya and irrigation projects, on the ground that it was imposing a Rs 9,000 crore burden on the state government.

The GST Council meeting held in Hyderabad on September 9 did not take up the TS government’s demand. After the meeting, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley said that the TS calculations on the GST impact were wrong.

TS has been raising strong objections over imposition of 18 per cent GST on these projects since July, when GST came into force. Chief Minister K. Chandra-sekhar Rao had threatened to move the Supreme Court against the Centre if GST was not reduced to 5 per cent.

Following this, the Centre reduced GST from 18 per cent to 12 per cent, in the council meeting held in August.

But this did not pacify the TS government, which demanded further reduction to 5 per cent and sought to have the issue discussed in the council meeting held in Hyderabad last month.

The state continued its efforts to include this topic in the October 6 meeting and succeeded.

Finance minister Etela Rajender said, “Since our demand has been included in the agenda of the meeting, we are hopeful of the Centre taking a decision over GST reduction on projects to 5 per cent. We will continue to exert pressure on the Centre till our  demand is met. A few more states are expected to support our demand in the Council meeting on Friday.”