Nagpur Residential Hotels Association (NRHA) has vehemently condemned the recent move by the GST Council under chairmanship of the Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to withdraw GST exemption on Room Tariff up to Rs.1000; thereby attracting 12% GST from July 18, 2022 onwards.
Tejinder Singh Renu – President of NRHA said that despite the hospitality sector being the worst hit during the pandemic, the Government instead of giving some subsidy or financial soaps have rather punished us with bringing all hotel rooms under GST which were earlier exempted up to tariff of Rs.999. Although GST being indirect tax and its burden will fall on the customer, but the worst part of this is that it will hugely benefit the unregulated sector of hotel rooms being run in residential apartments and buildings, which are also rising day by day as we have no license under any rules thereby this sector is dangerously marching towards free-for-all sector.
Deepak Khurana – secretary of NRHA said Nagpur is a business centre thereby most of the customers are more budget centric, therefore increment of hotel tariff by 12% will make them shift to unregulated options available and thereby causing direct loss to the legal establishments.
NRHA had also dispatched memorandum to Narendra Modi – Prime Minister and Nirmala Sitharaman – Union Finance Minister with an appeal to rethink on this withdrawal of exemption on Room tariff; as this sector needs financial assistance and not a burden, we are already broken due to pandemic and another blow will finish many of us. In the larger interest of the hotel industry, this withdrawal of GST from July 18 should be withheld immediately.