Hyderabad: Telangana Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister KT Rama Rao wrote to the Union finance minister and head of GST Council Nirmala Sitharaman to withdraw the revising of GST from 5 percent to 12 percent on the textiles and handloom sector.
Sitharaman had stated that the revised GST rates will be applicable from January 1, 2022. KTR in a series of tweets argued that the handlooms and textiles industry and the millions of weavers’ community had staged several protests against it demanding the GST waived.
As such, keeping in mind the cost of raw materials and the drastic decrease in industry margins, the increased taxation will create an adverse situation and may lead to the closing of thousands of textile units across the nation. Hence, KTR on behalf of the Telangana state requested that the revised rates be put on hold.
KTR pointed out that the textile industry contributes to the second-highest employment in the country and were still dealing with COVID’s impacts. It was hence the responsibility of the Centre to come to the rescue of weavers instead of increasing the GST to 12%.
This move, argued the Telangana leader, could cost lakhs of people their jobs. He further said that farmers have already come on to the streets to protest against the Centre. If the Centre wanted to prevent weavers from doing the same, rolling back on GST was of utmost importance.