No GST on power bill, says minister
Electricity minister V Senthil Balaji on Sunday clarified that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) wasn’t levied on the electricity consumption charges and it was applicable only on application fees and some other services.
Stating that former deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam (OPS) had recently asked the government to do away with the GST on application and other fees, he said it looked like OPS was either not aware that the same was introduced during the AIADMK regime in 2018 or had conveniently forgotten the same.
“While the AIADMK government had made efforts to collect the GST arrears, the DMK government has suspended the move,” Balaji said. He was in the city to inaugurate construction of new roads in the corporation limits at a cost of Rs 3.18 crore. “New roads will be laid for a distance of 7.01km.”
Referring to the OPS statement that the DMK, which had opposed the AIADMK move to install meters for free power connections to farmers, was silently fixing the same, the minister said the exercise had begun in 2016 by the previous government. He said more than 4.52 lakh farmers had registered for the free power in the past 20 years and chief minister M K Stalin had given an assent to provide connection to one lakh farmers in a year.
To a question on the irregularities in procuring garbage bins for the Coimbatore corporation during the AIADMK rule, the minister said that irregularities were also found in procuring vehicles for garbage collection. “Several such incidents took place in the past. They will be identified and the government will take legal action against those involved,” he said.
The minister later visited 21-year-old Mohan Kumar, of Pollachi, who was undergoing treatment in a private hospital on Mettupalayam Road under the ‘Innuyir Kaappom’ scheme after he met with an accident on December 22, 2021.
Under the scheme, empanelled hospitals could provide free treatment to the accident victims in the first 48 hours and claim the expenses later.
