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Bangalore District Chemists & Druggists Association (BDC&DA) has urged the Union government to enhance the Goods & Services Tax (GST) composition scheme from Rs. 100 lakh to Rs. 150 lakh. It has also asked for total exemption of GST on insulin, oncology and anti HIV formulations besides all types of vaccines.
In a representation made to finance minister Arun Jaitley, the Association has said that the small and medium pharmacy traders are faced by hardships in filling Tran 1 and Tran 2 forms. Therefore the need of the hour is to ensure that the government increase the composition scheme rate from Rs. 100 lakh to Rs. 150 lakh.
“We chemists face severe difficulties because of a number of medicinal and pharmaceutical preparations. We also exhibit and sell other goods such as baby foods, cosmetics, diapers, surgical goods and other commodities which are related to sale in the pharmacy outlets that come under the fold of all five GST rates of zero percent, 5 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent and 28 per cent. These products are marketed with retail price inclusive of all taxes on the unit pack with minimum margins provided”, informed V Hari Krishnan, president, Bangalore District Chemists & Druggists Association.
“Our traders face hardships in selling due to the rates printed on the packs to be abetted with bifurcation of GST in the form of CGST and SGST. Therefore, we request the Union government to enhance the present limit of composition scheme for a sale to the general public. This move if it comes through could provide huge relief to the small and medium traders who deal with different commodities.
By enhancing the composition scheme limit to Rs. 150 lakh per annum, the Central and state government will be benefitted by the input claims of the dealer who opt for the composition scheme.
Finance minister Jaitley who is also the chairman of the GST Council has considered to slash the rate for certain formulations including insulin by bringing it down to 5 per cent. The medicines which need to be brought down from 5 per cent GST to zero per cent are those for cancer, HIV and diabetes patients. Besides there are also a number of vaccines which are in need to prevent malaria, typhoid, dengue, hepatitis, said Krishnan.
Further, the Association has also asked the government to issue necessary notifications on the composition scheme limit without considering the turnover of the exempted items.
The government should consider our request on top priority as our traders are still unable to file Tran 1 due to the requirements of HSN, batch number, suppliers code, received date, purchase number, closing stock quantity, mention of MRP, indicating the purchase, sale, abetted MRP, MRP inclusive, VAT rate and VAT amount as the chemists and druggists were paying VAT on MRP in Karnataka from April 1, 2005 to June 30, 2017 which defers with other states, said Krishnan.
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