Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has urged the Centre to exempt works under beedi and granite industries, irrigation and drinking water from the Goods and Service Tax (GST) regime.
He sent letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in this regard.
Stating that Telangana has thousands of workers depending on the beedi industry for their livelihood, Chandrasekhar Rao said imposing excess taxes on the industry will adversely affect the interests of beedi workers.
He also mentioned that there are about 2,000 granite processing units employing about two lakh people directly and about five lakh indirectly.
KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, pointed out that the GST Council has proposed 12% GST on granite and marble raw blocks and 28% GST on finished products.
He requested the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister to use their good offices to ensure that the GST on granite, both raw and finished products, is reduced to 12%.
He mentioned that Telangana has taken up a number of massive infrastructure programmes, including the prestigious 'Mission Bhagiratha' drinking water and irrigation projects, with huge investments.
Considering that the irrigation and drinking water projects are for larger public welfare, it would be appropriate to bring them under the exempted category or at least put them in the lower GST slab of 5%, he wrote.
Earlier, the GST Council completed the exercise of bringing all items under a 4-slab tax structure.
The GST Council had convened for its 15th meeting to finalise the rate fitment of the remaining six items, including gold.
The fitment of 1,211 items was decided at the Council's previous meeting held last month in Srinagar.
IANS inputs