Finance Minister PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan, who made a strong pitch for rolling back the decision to increase the GST on textile and apparels from 5 per cent to 12 per cent at the 46th meeting of the GST Council on Friday in New Delhi, said the council decided to hold the rate at 5 per cent after 'most states wanted the decision to be put on hold".

Stating that for the first time, the GST Council meeting was convened on a plea from one State (Gujarat) for a single agenda, Rajan said that almost all member-States demanded that in future the council should be convened only if multiple States raise a particular issue.

The Minister had told the council that textile industry is the primary job generator of Tamil Nadu, and hiking GST may lead to large-scale unemployment in the sector. He had also suggested that readymade garments valued above Rs.3,OOO or Rs.5,000 a piece could be taxed at 12 per cent and 5 per cent tax rate can be retained for other textile goods. The minister also said that under the old VAT regime, Tamil Nadu gave full tax exemption for textile goods and readymade garments were taxed at 5 percent.

Media: New Indian Express