The GST Council, chaired by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, will meet today to discuss several key issues, including a proposal to bring petrol and diesel under the GST regime.
“Finance Minister Smt @nsitharaman will chair the 45th GST Council meeting at 11 AM in Lucknow tomorrow. The meeting will be attended by MOS Shri @mppchaudhary besides Finance Ministers of States & UTs and Senior officers from Union Government & States,” the Finance Ministry has tweeted.
During the meeting, the Goods and Services Tax Council may also consider extending the tax concessions on 11 Covid drugs till December 31 and compensation to states for making up the GST shortfall.
Tax rates on various Covid-19 drugs and essentials were reduced till September 30 in the previous GST Council meeting held on June 12. The GST Council is likely to discuss a proposal to treat food delivery apps such as Zomato and Swiggy as restaurants and levy 5 percent GST on supplies made by them, according to reports.
It may also consider a roadmap to make Aadhaar authentication mandatory for existing 8 million registered firms gradually.
It is learnt that several states have been opposing the move on fear of losing a chunk of this consumption-based tax. Even the Centre may not be too keen to back the proposal, as this may require huge compromises by the central and state governments on revenue.
Petrol, Diesel Prices in India
As demand recovered, the spike in the global oil prices pushed the petrol and diesel prices in India to an all-time high. Both central and state governments were using the extra tax on petrol and diesel to compensate for the pandemic losses. However, higher prices and anguish from the public led to the greater demand of bringing it under the GST.
Accordingly, in Delhi a litre of petrol costs Rs 101.19 and diesel costs Rs 88.62.
Similarly, the price of petrol in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata stood unchanged at Rs 107.26, Rs 98.96, Rs 101.62 per litre, respectively.
A day ahead of the scheduled meeting, the Kerala government has already said that it will vehemently oppose any move to bring petrol and diesel under the GST regime as that will further reduce revenue generation for the state and asserted that the Centre should reduce its levies on the two commodities to provide relief to the common people.
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