Editorial: Buckling under pressure

Bungling in decision-making and then retracting seems to be the hallmark of the BJP government at the Centre. It is also clear that the union government sees reason only when tremendous pressure is mounted on it or it faces a threat of mass uprising. We saw this in the case of the infamous farm laws which the BJP government pulled back after prolonged agitation by farmers from the north which also claimed several lives. This time around, the BJP government was put on notice by the Telangana government for its move to impose an additional seven per cent GST on textiles and handlooms, pushing the tax rate from five per cent to 12 per cent. union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman, facing the heat at the GST Council meet in New Delhi on Friday, announced that the decision to increase GST on textiles and handlooms had been deferred and that it would be taken up at the next GST Council meeting in February. The announcement is certainly a major victory for Telangana, particularly Industries and Textiles Minister K T Rama Rao, who fought relentlessly against the tax hike move. Rama Rao regularly tweeted tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other union Ministers, drawing their attention to the havoc it would cause in the textile and handloom sectors. He wrote to union Textiles Minister Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman pointing out that any move to increase the GST rate would sound the death knell for both textiles and handlooms sectors. The Minister, in a sardonic tweet tagging Piyush Goyal, pointed out that the saffron party’s Gujarat chief himself was against the GST hike. “Hamaari nahi to sahi, Gujarat ki awaaz tho suniye Sri Piyush Goyalji,” Rama Rao’s tweet read. Besides Rama Rao’s efforts, the All India Padmashali Sangham also threatened to launch nationwide demonstrations beginning January 5 if the Centre failed to withdraw its decision on the tax hike.

What is of paramount importance now is that there should be concerted efforts to ensure that the tax hike issue does not return to the table. Merely deferring the tax hike move is not enough and efforts should be directed at forcing the Centre to shelve its decision. After all, it involves the livelihood of lakhs of weavers in the country with at least 15 lakh people expected to lose their jobs in the cascading effect that the GST hike would have on the sectors. In fact, the Centre should seriously consider removing GST on the handloom sector altogether since that is the basic demand of the community. It is ironic that the BJP which had promised two crore jobs annually and could not fulfil it, should make a move that will result in lakhs of people losing their means of livelihood. The least it can do is not undo the good work done by governments like the TRS administration in Telangana for the handloom sector, with a single stroke of GST hike