Not a right time to bring petrol, diesel under GST: Nirmala Sitharaman

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Not a right time to bring petrol, diesel under GST: Nirmala Sitharaman (Image: Pixabay)
Not a right time to bring petrol, diesel under GST: Nirmala Sitharaman (Image: Pixabay)

New Delhi : Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday announced that this was not a right time to implement Goods and Services Tax on petrol and diesel, the decision has been taken in discussion by GST Council after an order from Kerala High Court.

"On the direction of court it was brought on to table but members spoke very clearly they do not want it to be included in GST," Ms Sitharaman said.

"This will be reported to the high court as the GST Council felt it was not the time to bring petroleum products under the GST," she added.

In June this year, Kerala High Court had asked the GST Council to consider bringing petrol and diesel under the GST.

The minister also announced that the GST rate on bio-diesel for blending with diesel (used by oil marketing companies) has been reduced from 12% to 5%.

She also announced that online food delivery apps like Zomato and Swiggy must pay GST instead of the restaurant they pick up orders from. However, the Council mentioned that there's no new tax.

"Suppose you order food from aggregator and restaurant is paying taxes. We found that some restaurants were not paying taxes. Now we are saying if you order via aggregator, the aggregator will collect tax from consumer and pay to the authorities instead of the restaurant doing this. There is no new tax," Revenue Secreatry Tarun Bajaj said.