The Tamilnadu Chamber of Commerce is apprehensive that GST will make food products dear, and affect the poor.
It has called for total exemption of the tax on agricultural produce and basic processed foods such as rice and rice flour, wheat and wheat flour, maida, edible oils, milk and milk products.
For other value-added food products, the Madurai-based chamber wants a concessional rate of tax.
“A separate revenue neutral rate should be worked out for such products and should not exceed 8 per cent,” the chamber’s Senior President, S Rethinavelu, has said in a press release.
In an earlier press release on GST, the Chamber termed the AIADMK party’s walkout from the Rajya Sabha when the GST Bill was discussed as “unfortunate” and called upon the party chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha to get “on board” the GST.