TBM Staff - Mumbai With growing fuel prices globally, the Union Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman said she will bring up the issue of bringing Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime before the GST Council and the states, reports The Hindu.
The decision to include ATF in GST, she pointed out, was not hers alone to make. “It is for the GST Council [to decide]. The next time we meet at the Council, I will put it on the table for them to discuss it,” she said, adding that she will also discuss the aviation sector’s concerns with banks.
Sitharaman was responding to a plea from SpiceJet Chairman Ajay Singh to lower the excise duty on fuel at least temporarily, as global crude oil prices are hovering around USD 90 per barrel, and pursue the inclusion of ATF in the GST regime.
“Of course, just not for airlines, but the global price of fuel is now a concern for all of us. More so for airlines because it [the sector] has not yet picked up from the pandemic,” the Minister said in a post-Budget interaction hosted by industry body ASSOCHAM.
Noting that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 occurred just as the civil aviation sector was on the cusp of a revival with tourists travelling across destinations, Sitharaman said that States have since brought back restrictions on domestic travel, and global travel too is affected by quarantine norms, hitting the sector. (Source: The Hindu)
