New Delhi: Dr. Faizan Ahmed Azizi on September 1 wrote a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. In the letter, he urged the minister to reduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from 16 to 5 percent.
Justifying his request, Azizi wrote, “Electricity is an integral part of the right to life according to Article 21 of the Constitution of India”. “When 5 percent GST can be charged on household necessities such as edible oil, sugar, spices, and tea, etc. then the same percentage of GST should be applied on household electricity bills too”, he added.
He further said that the State Government tax on the sale of electricity should be removed as it is already getting tax in GST.
In order to justify his request, he also quoted a Pew Research Centre report. He wrote, “The coronavirus pandemic may have shrunk India’s middle-class population by 32 million in 2020 and driven 75 million below the poverty line in 2020, a Pew Research Centre report said, as a severe recession walloped Asia’s third-largest economy. In such situation imposing higher rate of tax on electricity is wrong”.