Centre remains unmoved on TS plea to exempt handlooms from GST

Handlooms Minister KT Rama Rao has been vehemently opposing the decision by Centre to levy GST on handlooms.

Hyderabad: Almost six years after the State began requesting the Centre to exempt the handloom sector from the GST purview, and multiple campaigns later, the BJP-led union government remains unmoved by the plight of the weavers community here.

Handlooms Minister KT Rama Rao has been vehemently opposing the union government’s decision to levy GST on handlooms. Since 2017, the Minister has made several requests to the union government to withdraw the GST, citing the adverse impact on the sales of handloom products and cascading impact on weavers’ earnings.

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Right from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman to union Textiles Minister Piyush Goyal, the Minister wrote letters seeking withdrawal of GST on handlooms.

The BJP government has been imposing five percent GST on raw material and finished handloom cloth from July 1, 2017. Since then, several protests were staged demanding waiver of the GST on handloom products and its raw material (yarn, dyes and chemicals).

As if this was not enough, the union government also decided to increase the GST to 12 percent from January 1, 2022.

On October 22 last year, Rama Rao also launched a postcard campaign appealing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to roll back the five percent GST on handlooms. He personally wrote a card to the Prime Minister as well.

Prior to this, the Minister had written a letter to the union Textiles Minister Piyush Goyal on August 7, which incidentally is Handlooms Day, demanding the union government to withdraw the GST.

In December 2021 too, he urged the union Textiles Minister to scrap the decision to revise the GST from five percent to 12 percent effective from January 1, 2022. Though the Centre did not roll back the GST hike, it has kept the move on hold, purportedly in view of the upcoming elections in five States.

Meanwhile, the Akhila Bharata Padmashali Sangham – Handloom section, which has been protesting against the GST on handlooms, is planning to up the ante with a Handloom March from Red Fort to Raj Ghat on August 7 from 8 am at New Delhi.

Since 18 months, the sangham has been conducting different events and campaigns demanding withdrawal of GST on handlooms. Over 82 MPs from 21 political parties in 15 States had extended their support to the weavers associations “Zero GST on handlooms” signature campaign, said Akhila Bharata Padmashali Sangham – Handloom section national president Y Venkanna Netha.

This year, 50 MPs from different States have agreed to take part in the Handloom March on August 7 in New Delhi. After the march, there will be a round table conference involving all-party MPs and weavers association’s representatives from across the country, he added.