Mumbai, Jan 16 (PTI) The Biodiesel Association ofIndia (BDAI) has sought a revision in Goods and Services Tax(GST) of 18 per cent levied on biodiesel to 5 per cent sayinghigher taxation will have an adverse impact on the industry.
BDAI has written letters to the Union finance ministerArun Jaitley and finance ministers of West Bengal andRajasthan seeking their support for reducing the GST from 18per cent to 5 per cent.
The apex biodiesel industry body in its letter hasmentioned that in the pre-GST regime, only six per cent exciseduty was levied on biodiesel and no VAT was imposed on itmainly to promote the use of the clean fuel.
"States like West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand,Rajasthan, Haryana and Chhattisgarh were levying only theexcise duty. But with the implementation of GST, the statutorylevy on biodiesel has gone up to 18 per cent which has made itcostlier than high speed diesel," BDAI said in its letters.
Currently, biodiesel is used by oil marketingcompanies (IOCL, HPCL, BPCL), Indian Railways, state transportcorporations, and port authorities, among others. The industryis also in discussions with the army, navy and air force forusing the green fuel.
"Indian Railways was able to start blending across 15zones, but stopped it due to increased burden of GST. Thestate road transport corporations of Karnataka, AndhraPradesh, Telangana have created blending infrastructure buthave not been able to absorb the increase in GST resultingin complete stoppage of the blending programme," BDAI said.
It further pointed out that several biodiesel retailoutlets established in the states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan,Uttar Pradesh have become non-functional due to increasedbiodiesel price.
This may cause a major setback by way of thousands ofjobs losses, BDAI said. PTI PSK DSKDSK.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.