By Avinash P. Subramanyam
Copyright deccanchronicle
VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has called for an extensive awareness programme among the people on the benefits of rationalisation of GST, which could reduce the prices of a large number of items across the board. The campaign would be held from Sept 30 to Oct 19, the CM said. Naidu reviewed the GST slab-rate changes with the Cabinet sub-committee on Monday. He recommended a door-to-door campaign on the benefits of GST reforms and said 65,000 meetings and programmes would be held across the state in this context in a span of three weeks. The CM wanted the awareness drive to focus on agriculture, MSMEs, handloom products, aquaculture, education, insurance, electronics, e-commerce, building construction sector, tourism, hospitality, transport, logistics, sports equipment, renewable energy, etc by the concerned departments as per a given schedule. There must be tractor rallies and display of farm equipment, especially for farmers. Awareness must be created on APCO, Lepakshhi, One District-One Product, and products being manufactured in MSMEs, explaining as to how the tax has been reduced. Naidu also called for awareness programmes among students through essay writing and painting competitions on how the tax rate cuts would benefit the people. The plan is to arrange such programmes in 7,000 high schools and 4,000 junior colleges. Extensive awareness is also to be created on zero GST payment for life insurance and health insurance schemes. The CM-led meeting decided to arrange awareness programmes at 850 places vis-a-vis price reduction on electronic products involving manufactures and dealers at district, assembly segment and mandal levels and exhibitions on e-commerce related products.
