Terming earlier GST rates on bakery products as “disproportionately high,” Indian Bakers Federation (IBF), has expressed gratitude to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for significant reductions in tax rates as decided in the recent GST Council meeting.
“It is under Modi’s guidance and the efficient functioning of his government that the long-pending concerns of bakers across the nation have finally received deserved attention,” IBF president and former president said in a statement.
Acknowledging contributions of its founding members, IBF’s general secretary said: “We recognise with profound appreciation the current leadership team of IBF, across all national chapters, whose perseverance and spirit have kept the momentum alive through continuous engagement with policymakers, always driven by the shared passion for the baking community’s prosperity.”
Unified voice
IBF, founded in 2017, was born out of a collective realisation that the industry needed a unified voice to tackle the pressing issue of disproportionately high GST levied on bakery products. “These perishable, short-shelf-life foods have traditionally been taxed under a generic food category, resulting in an onerous burden that undermined the growth and vitality of the bakery trade,” IBF said in a statement.
The recent GST reforms, which include significant reductions in tax rates on various bakery items from 18 per cent to 5 per cent, and in some cases to nil, are a testament to the persistent and sincere representations made by IBF leaders to Union Ministers, the Ministry of Finance and the GST Council. “These changes usher in a more logical and supportive tax environment for the bakery sector, promoting growth, affordability and sustainability,” it said.
The GST Council decided to lower rates from 18 per cent to 5 per cent on pastry, cakes, biscuits and other bakers’ wares, whether or not containing cocoa; communion wafers, empty cachets of a kind suitable for pharmaceutical use, sealing wafers, rice paper and similar products (other than bread, pizza bread, khakhra, chapathi, roti).
It has also fixed 5 per cent GST for extruded or expanded products, savoury or salted products, as well as on yeasts (active and inactive); other single cell micro-organisms, dead (but not including vaccines of heading 3002); and prepared baking powders from September 22 against the current 12 per cent. For pizza bread, there will be no GST as opposed to 5 per cent now.
