VIJAYAWADA: The AP State Haj House Committee, which met here Tuesday, took a serious view of the Centre’s decision of imposing 18 per cent GST on Haj pilgrims and passed a resolution seeking rollback of the same.
The statement jointly issued by MLC and Government Whip Mohammed Ahmed Sharif, AP State Haj House Committee Chairman Momin Ahmed Hussain and the committee members, said GST would cause a burden of about Rs 10,000 on each Haj pilgrim.
The committee alleged that the Centre had taken a unilateral decision to cancel Haj subsidy this year itself even as the Supreme Court has suggested that it be lifted in a phased manner by 2022. It felt that at a time when the government is supposed to provide financial assistance to Haj pilgrims, it is imposing more burden on them in the form of GST. They also said the Centre had done injustice to Muslims in Andhra Pradesh without facilitating embarkation point at the Vijayawada airport because of which the Haj pilgrims are forced to take flight in Hyderabad this year too.