Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday elaborately spoke about the list of items on which GST is levied at Rajya Sabha during the Monsoon Session of the Parliament. According to the finance minister, GST tax is only on banks purchasing cheque books from printers. She said there is GST on customer cheques and on the withdrawal of cash from banks. Further, she said that there is no GST on loose food items. "The 5% tax is only on pre-packed and labelled items".
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday elaborately spoke about the list of items on which GST is levied at Rajya Sabha during the Monsoon Session of the Parliament. According to the finance minister, GST tax is only on banks purchasing cheque books from printers. She said there is GST on customer cheques and on the withdrawal of cash from banks. Further, she said that there is no GST on loose food items. "The 5% tax is only on pre-packed and labelled items". "All states at the GST Council agreed to the proposal to levy 5% GST on pre-packed, labelled food items; not one person who spoke against it," Sitharaman added. She also reiterated that there is no GST on crematoriums or mortuaries. However, if someone wants to open a new crematorium GST will be imposed. "No GST on crematorium; tax only on construction of new crematorium," Sitharaman replied to debate on price rise in Rajya Sabha. She further added that hospital bed or ICU, tax only on room with ₹5,000 per day rent have been exempted from GST.
Further she compared the taxes on tems pre GST-ear and post GST and claimed that her governement has lowered the cess on several itemsof which public is unaware of. As per the Finance Minister:
- Products Pre GST Post GST
- toothpowder 17% 12%
- Hair oil 23.9% 18%
- Soap 29.9% 18%
- Footwear 21% 18%
- Paint 31.5% 18%
- Sugar 6% 5%
- Sweets (Mithai) 7% 5%
- Washing machine 31.8% 18%
In a price-rise debate, the finance minister said the government has adopted a targeted approach, based on ground-level inputs, to tackle retail inflation which is ruling at around 7%.
Sitharaman stressed that the fundamentals of the Indian economy are strong.
The finance minister said that both the government and the Reserve Bank are taking steps to bring down inflation below 7% and further under 6 per cent.
The government has tasked the RBI to ensure that the consumer price index (CPI) based inflation remains at 4 per cent with a margin of 2% on either side.
Indian economy compared to the situation prevailing in peer-group nations and even developed countries are definitely "much better", she said.
Sitharaman added there is no collapse in the value of the Indian rupee, and added, "And actually, if you compare Indian rupee versus other currencies, it is appreciating in its manner".
On Jal Jeevan Mission, the FM said in 2019, only 3.2 crore households were getting piped water, but now 9.6 crore households are getting piped water.