PANJIM: Hitting out at his detractors such as Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, Marcaim MLA Sudin Dhavalikar and the Finance Minister of Tamil Nadu Palanivel Thiagarajan, Mauvin Godinho, Goa’s member on the GST council denied all allegations made against him.
Godinho was responding to a letter written to him by Reginaldo that he had not responded to two ‘grave’ charges made against him by Thiagarajan about alleged opposition to a small State like Sikkim being allowed to collect cess and reducing GST on vaccines from 5% to 0 on humanitarian grounds.
Godinho reiterated that unlike what Dhavalikar suggested, that Goa was begging at the GST council, the State was making a legitimate demand asking the Centre to release the compensation cess shortfall earlier to smaller States. He said if one goes by what Thiagarajan had suggested, Goa could end up with 1 vote, TN with 100 votes and a big State like Uttar Pradesh with 200 votes, which is not fair to smaller States.
Godinho added that he is part of a Group of Ministers, which has high-ranking ministers of seven States that conducted a deep study on the issue of GST on vaccines.
He said the GoM had recommended to the Union Finance Minister on Tuesday, to lower the rates on those COVID related products where the benefit will directly go to the patient and not to the big hospitals.
Regarding lowering GST on vaccines, he pointed out that the vaccine manufacturers in India themselves have asked that the GST be not lowered below 5% as they will stand to lose out on Input Tax Credit (ITC), which allows them to get credit on whatever raw materials are purchased towards making the vaccine, without which the price of vaccines in India will shoot up.
He further added that they have also recommended that there be a three month full exemption on all vaccinations being imported, while pointing out that another category on the rate of taxation in this regard is being created.
On the Sikkim issue, he said his comments had been twisted and that he had spoken about there being uniformity in the country given that presently it is the Centre that is levying cess and distributing it to the States. He added that the question of voting on this never rose and that he had instead suggested allowing this to be optional for smaller States.
Finally, Godinho denied a statement in Reginaldo’s letter that Reginaldo had helped him try to become the Chief Minister when former CM (late) Manohar Parrikar fell ill. He mocked Reginaldo saying this would never have happened as Reginaldo was in Congress and he was in BJP.
