NEW DELHI: The Parliament on Monday approved the Health Security and National Security Cess Bill 2025, seeking a cess on manufacturing units of pan masala to augment expenditure on national security and public health. The bill was approved by the lower house on Friday.
As the bill was taken up in the upper house for discussion, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that it intends to create a “dedicated resource stream” for two domains of national importance: health and national security.
“It is not on essential commodities, and does not envisage any future when it may have to be placed on an essential commodity... “This tax or cess is to be a deterrent to those who tend to use these demerit goods, and it certainly doesn’t burden ordinary citizens and their essential daily consumption,” she said.
She also clarified that it does not impact the GST regime. “The cess is linked to the capacity of packing machines… and the grammage of products, thus providing a transparent and predictable assessment basis…” The intention is that this levy shall capture the production potential of the unit... The levy is not on actual production, but production capacity,” Sitharaman said.
Opposition MPs, however, questioned the bill’s title being a mix of Hindi and English words and also demanded that the bill be sent to a parliamentary panel for further scrutiny.
Congress MP Shaktisingh Gohil questioned the title of the bill and said the bill was listed late, which didn’t give members enough time to go through it to move amendments.
Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale also questioned the bill’s title and said, “If you want to be inclusive, maybe, since Bengal elections are coming, bring a bill named in Bangla... we will also celebrate it.”