| Summary: | Background and challenges to implementation
Bidi is consumed on a large scale in
India, especially in rural and low income regions One of the major reasons
behind this is the price of bidi. Out of
the 29 states in India only 6 have negligible taxes on Bidi with no other
taxes being imposed on it. To equalize the price of products throughout the
country the of India abolished more than 500 different types of taxes and
planned implementation of one nation one tax system. This has been labelled as
GST.
As the tax on Bidi was low, it was
being expected that it will be kept in the lower tax bracket of GST.Bidi sale in India is 8 times more
than cigarettes. More than 9.2% of smokers in the age group of more than 15
years smoke .The Indian formed a council to pass the GST bill.
Intervention or response
Various organisations conducted campaigns on a national scale to include
Bidi in a higher tax bracket under the GST. Campaigns pertaining to the above
were initiated in various parts of the country via print, news agencies,
electronic media and social media.
The campaign received 87164 likes
with the news of the campaign reaching more than 1.3 million people. 1474
people tweeted on this issue to Prime Minister with the tweets being viewed
more than 283757 times.hastag(#bidi# onetobaccotax, #GST, #PMMODI, #Onetobaccotax, #Tobaccokills, #बीड़ी)
created for one tobacco tax under
GST which was seen by and agreed upon by 712239 people. The print media
published more than a 1000 articles on this issue. the campaign.
Results and lessons learnt
The campaign to include Bidi in a higher tax slab(28%) caused
the govt & council to include it in the higher tax category.
Conclusions and key recommendations
This shows the key role played by campaigns in various aspects
in raising an issue if public interest to put pressure on the government.
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