What were the highlights of the GST Council meeting held on 17th September?

Here are some of the highlights of the 45th meeting of the GST Council meet chaired by Nirmala Sitharaman on 17th September.

· One of the major expectations was of bringing food aggregators like Zomato and Swiggy under the GST ambit at the rate of 5%. That was announced by the FM and is likely to bridge revenue leakage of Rs.2,000 crore via unregistered restaurants that do not pay GST, supplying through these food aggregators.

· The government has decided to shelve any decision for now to bring petrol and diesel under the ambit of the GST regime. Clearly, the states are unwilling to give up a lucrative revenue source and the centre does not want to upset the applecart.

· To encourage ethanol and alternate fuel blending, the GST rate on biodiesel supplied to oil marketing companies for blending with diesel, has been cut from 12% to 5%. This should encourage the use of less polluting fuels. Even GST on retro kits for persons with special disabilities have been reduced to 5%.

· To encourage exports and ease their burden, the transport of export goods by vessels and air exempted from GST till 30-Sep. This will ensure that exporters don’t suffer due to delays in refunds on account of technical glitches.

· To correct the inverted duty structure, the GST rate on locomotives and engines has been increased from 12% to 18%. In addition, the GST rate of 12% will now be applicable for specific renewable devices.

· Concessional GST for COVID-19 drugs has been extended from 30-Sep to 31-Dec. However, this will apply to medicines like Remdesivir, Tocilizumab, Heparin etc where rates will continue at nil rate or 5%. Medical equipment will not get this extension.

· On the pharma front, there has been a sharp reduction from 12% to 5% in many cases. Also, the GST rates on cancer drugs like Keytruda are to be reduced to 5%. , along with similar other medicines used to treat cancer, are also likely to come down from 12 percent to five percent. Drugs for muscular atrophy have also been exempted from IGST.