The GST Council on Saturday lowered the tax rate on Covid-19 medicines and equipments from 12% to 5%. It has kept the tax rate on vaccines unchanged at 5 per cent.
The rate on Remdesivir and anti-coagulants like Heparin is slashed from 12 per cent to 5 per cent.
Tax on medical grade oxygen, oxygen concentrators, ventilators, BiPAP machines and high flow nasal cannula (HFNC) devices has been cut to 5 per cent from 12 per cent, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.
Also, tax on Covid testing kits has been brought down to 5 per cent from 12 per cent.
Pulse oximeters, hand sanitisers, temperature check equipment and ambulances too will attract lower 5 per cent tax, she said.
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GST on Tocilizumab and Amphotericin B is slashed to nil from 5 per cent.
The finance minister said that the Centre will be paying and receiving 75 per cent of all the tax collected on vaccine that will be further distributed with states. She had earlier said that exempting vaccines from GST would deny input tax credit on raw material and supplies that could impact its pricing.
The 44th GST council meeting was chaired the finance minister and was also attended by Union Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur besides Finance Ministers of States & UTs and senior officers of the Ministry of Finance & States/ UTs.
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(With PTI inputs)
