**Pai Dismisses 'Silly' Mahakumbh Mela GST Claim, Netizens Respond**
Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai dismissed allegations of false goods and services tax collections during the Kumbh Mela 2025, which was held in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh.
Pai shared a post by an X user, who called out the “Kumbh propaganda” of the Uttar Pradesh government, portraying incorrect revenue and GST collection numbers.
"66 crores people visited (Kumbh Mela), Rs.7,000 crores investment and Rs.300,000 crores revenue….It means Uttar Pradesh should have received 54,000 crores GST collection in February. But, Uttar Pradesh received only Rs.9155 crores as GST collection! What happened to rest Rs.44,845 crores GST collection?" the user wrote.
Responding to the post, Mohandas Pai called the allegation “silly” and stated that much of the revenue generated during Mahakumbh 2025 does not fall under the ambit of GST.
“Silly statement. For GST the input tax is a credit so no one on one correlation. Much of the spending has no GST, food, necessities, boat trips, local spending,unregistered small business etc. fuel charges has State taxes not GST,” Pai said.
Further, he said that the GST collection for the Kumch period is not out yet, and the revenue numbers claimed by the X user are false.
“3l cr is estimated spending not revenue for govt. GST recd in Feb is for Jan, Khumb was largely in Feb. we need to wait to see the impact on GST (sic),” Pai added.
