The Upper Assam Chamber of Commerce Secretary Pawan More in response to a tweet by Piyush Goyal regarding the lowering of GST rates of several commodities recently, has tweeted to the Union Minister of Finance, Railways, etc., that many companies had raised the prices of their commodities as a result of which the lowering of GST rate had not benefitted the consumers in any way.
More told Northeast Now that they had received complaints that prices of several household items, cosmetics and other commodities were being slowly increased by the companies as a result of which the consumers were being hit hard. More had further posted a picture of a bottle of a particularly well-known brand as an example.
He said that though Piyush Goyal had presented a video of the complete list of more than dozen commodities like fridge, cooler, etc., the GST of which had been lowered to 18 per cent from 28 per cent, what was happening at the ground level was that prices of products were being increased.
More’s tweet read: @PiyushGoyal Maximum companies are raising the prices of their products as well as MRP. Where is the benefit to the consumer in spite of deduction in GST rates?
More hoped that the Finance Ministry would order a survey of all commodities in the market and find out what the retail price was before and after GST. “The claim made by Goyal that decreasing the GST rate of more than a dozen items would provide relief to the consumers – especially middle class – is hollow given this scenario,” he said.