As the food items used for ‘langar sewa’ (free community kitchen) are not exempt from the Goods and Services Tax, the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandhak Committee, which manages the affairs of gurdwaras in Punjab, fears that it would have to bear an additional financial burden of ₹10 crore annually.
The SGPC has urged the GST Council and Finance Minister Arun Jaitely to exempt all langar purchases from the GST Act.
Enjoyed VAT exemption
“Earlier, all purchases for langar by the SGPC at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Keshgarh Sahib in Anandpur and Damdama Sahib in Bathinda were exempted from the Value Added Tax (VAT). But with GST, we will have bear a burden of nearly ₹10 crore annually,” SGPC chief secretary Harcharan Singh told The Hindu .
Mr. Singh said the SGPC was not a commercial organisation and hence its activities should be kept out of the GST purview. “We receive money from offerings, which we spent on the free kitchen and other social causes,” he said.
Union Food Processing Industries Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal also raised the issue with the Union Finance Minister. Ms. Badal said the SGPC spent around ₹75 crore annually on food items such as desi ghee, sugar and pulses for the free kitchen. “But with GST, it will have to bear a financial burden of ₹10 crore on these purchases as they fall in the 5% to 18% bracket,” she said.
Radical Sikh outfit Dal Khalsa has also supported the demand.
