PC: GST hike on sci equipment unkind act

CHENNAI: Former union finance minister P Chidambaram on Sunday slammed the BJP-led Centre for increasing the GST imposed on scientific equipment.

Describing the upward revision of GST on scientific equipment as an “unkind act,” Chidambaram took a sarcastic jibe at the ruling BJP’s “re-imagining” of the past and said, “GST on scientific equipment needed by research institutions and universities raised from 5 per cent to 12-18 per cent. This unkind act is after reducing the budget allocation of the Ministry of Science by 3.9 per cent from last year.”

Taking to twitter to vent his ire at the BJP regime, the senior Congress leader said, “The government perhaps believes that all the scientific knowledge that we need can be gathered by gazing at the sky and re-imagining our past.”

The loaded Tweet comes a day after Chidambaram called out Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regime for subjecting his party chief Sonia Gandhi to Enforcement Directorate probe in the National Herald case. “The ED claims to be ‘investigating’ Sonia Gandhi in a recorded transaction where not one rupee was given nor one rupee taken by anyone. This must be the first case in the world of ‘money laundering’ without any ‘money’ changing hands.”

Taking potshots at the BJP regime for ‘writing off’ the loans of defaulting corporate honchos close to the ruling dispensation, the former finance minister referred to media reports putting the cumulative default of 255 persons at Rs 2.4 lakh crore and wondered, “How many of them have been investigated or prosecuted by the CBI and ED?”