GST Council meets over Covid-19 essentials, compensation to States

The meeting takes place amid the ferocious second wave of Covid-19 infections and the Council likely to discuss a reduction in the tax rate on Covid medicines, vaccines and medical equipment as well as means to make up for the shortfall in revenues promised to states.

New Delhi: The 43rd meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council began at 11 am via video conferencing.

While Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has chaired the meeting, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, Finance Ministers of States and Union Territories, senior officers from both the Centre and States were present in the crucial meeting.

The meeting takes place amid the ferocious second wave of Covid-19 infections and the Council likely to discuss a reduction in the tax rate on Covid medicines, vaccines and medical equipment as well as means to make up for the shortfall in revenues promised to states.

Earlier, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra urged the Centre to remove GST on all life-saving medicines and equipment being used in the fight against COVID-19.

She asserted that charging tax on such items amid the pandemic amounts to "cruelty".

Recovering GST on COVID-related products from people who struggled for ambulances, beds, ventilators, oxygen, medicines, vaccines during the pandemic amounts to "cruelty and insensitivity", Priyanka Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

"Today, in the GST Council, the government should remove GST on all life-saving medicines and equipment being used in the fight against COVID," the Congress general secretary said.

She also attached a list of items being commonly used in the fight against coronavirus and the rate of GST charged on them.

According to Press Information Bureau (PIB) officials, Sitharaman will brief the media at 7 pm today on the decisions taken by the Council.

(With Agency Inputs)