Praising the Goods and Services Tax Council’s decision to poste GST hike on textiles, clothing and hosiery trade bodies have urged the government to scrap the proposal altogether. Devendra Kumar Baid, Secretary, West Bengal Garments Manufacturer’s & Dealers Association says, it plans to maintain pressure to abolish the proposal altogether to avert huge job losses.

The GST Council had planned to raise GST rates on numerous categories of clothing and textiles from 5 per cent to 12 per cent from January 1, 2022. However, following pleas from state governments and trade bodies, the Council deferred the ruling to avoid lakhs of job losses numerous organizations and politicians said it would lead to.

K B Agarwala, President, Federation of Hosiery Manufacturers Association of India, says, the tax hike would have caused a huge impact on the sector as it could not have absorbed the hike. The organized sector would have collapsed ad the government would have lost revenue with the strong emergence of a parallel economy to bypass the tax.