CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to waive GST for COVID-19 vaccines and other medicines for a certain period since state governments themselves are procuring them. He also made a few other requests to the Prime Minister which included immediate disbursal of pending GST compensation and rice subsidy, enhancing the state's borrowing limits from 3% of state GDP to 4% and ad hoc grants-in-aid to compensate the loss due to levy of cess on petrol and diesel.
An official release here said all states have been procuring COVID-19 vaccines as well as medicines for treating infected patients. Considering this, in consultation with the GST Council, the Centre should fix zero rate for vaccines and medicines for a certain period.
Besides, pointing out that the economic growth of the states has been affected severely due to the COVID-19 infection, the Chief Minister has sought three more measures which would help them cope with the situation.
Stalin said the Centre should immediately disburse the GST compensation due to the states and the rice subsidy pending for civil supplies corporations of states. Since the revenue received by the Centre due to levy of cess on petrol and diesel has not been shared with the states, the Centre should provide an 'ad hoc grants-in-aid" to the state to compensate for the loss of revenue due to the pandemic.
The Chief Minister also requested the Prime Minister to enhance the borrowing limits of state governments from 3% of the SDGP to 4% to help them garner financial resources to meet the additional expenditure caused by the pandemic.