Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired Goods and Services council meeting on Saturday 14th March in New Delhi. The GST council proposed to raise the Goods and Services tax on mobile phones from 12 percent to 18 percent. FM said that “the council has decided to hike the GST on Mobile phones to 18 percent from the current 12 percent.
On this GST hike on mobile phones, Mr. Pankaj Mohindroo. Chairman, ICEA requested honorable FM to retain the rate as 12%. According to him, “The increase of GST by 6% will be extremely detrimental to the vision of Digital India. Consumption will be stymied and our domestic consumption target of USD 80 billion (6 lakh crores) by 2025 will not be achieved. We will fall short by atleast 2 lakh crores. This was time for statesmanship especially when the country is going through a crisis and as a nation, we have fallen short”.
