Progressive Grocer spoke to three prominent members of the industry to get a sense of the sector’s comfort level in dealing with GST. While each one of them welcomed its implementation and were appreciative of GST’s stated aim to bring about transparency and accountability in transactions, they also expressed an overwhelming concern for more simplicity in the rules and greater flexibility in the compliance.
More than three months into GST, what do you feel has been its impact?
Amit Lohani, MD Max Foods and Convenor, Forum of Indian Food Importers: GST has been a tremendous idea, which if executed with less confusion would have led to better trade conditions. But unfortunately that is not happening, at least for small trade stakeholders and SMEs. The tax slabs are on the higher side primarily for food and beverage items. While on the one hand, we are fighting to tame food price inflation, on the other side we have high tax on food items that is creating a contradictory situation. Business has visibly faced the brunt of such inherent anomalies in GST. What we get to hear of the GST impact is primarily from the perspective of large corporate or multinationals. For SMEs and companies like ours, it is difficult to abide by all GST compliance due to several reasons – from high tax slabs to ambiguity in the rules to lack of qualified man-power, and several others.
Sunil Jindal, Managing Director, SRS Limited: The Indian government has taken some steps recently to usher in greater clarity in GST, which will make it easier for businesses to negotiate the system. The introduction of GST was expected to encourage transparency in business dealings and transactions. Businesses are moving in that direction and things are bound to improve on this front. Still, it is a bit early to comment on how effective GST will be in turning the business landscape towards better transparency and a more efficient transaction system. But we do expect it to have a positive effect.
Rishabh Asrani, Director, Sri Roda Foods: GST has resulted in an increase in tax percentage on our products. However, the removal of CVD from the duty structure has been beneficial for us and reduced the costs of our products.
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Gurgaon's First and Most Successful Independent F&G Retailer
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