The
Punjab Council of Ministers which held a meeting at
Chandigarh today has decided to impose a levy Value
Added Tax (VAT) at the rate of 4 % on mosquito
repellents, wood preservative, toilet cleaners,
chemicals for killing domestic insects, termicides,
phenyle and similar other products which are not used
for agriculture purpose. This decision would yield a
revenue of Rs 10 crore annually.
The
decision to impose VAT comes a fortnight before the state
legislative assembly is slated to hold its session. The
state government has already announced that the Punjab
Vidhan sabha, the state legislative assembly shall begin
from February 27. The February-March session of the state
assembly is generally the budget session. With
parliamentary elections around the corner, the budget, if
presented in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha is expected to be a
no taxes budget. However another opinion with the
government is that the government should not go ahead with
the presentation of the budget and should opt for a vote
on account.
Source
: Punjab Newspaper - Chandigarh, India, dated
03/02/2009
