Department of Pharmaceuticals sets up facilitation cell to help firms shift to GST

NEW DELHI: The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) has constituted a GST facilitation centre to enable pharma companies to successfully implement the new tax regime.

"In order to help and support the pharmaceutical industry in ensuring smooth and successful rollout of GST, a facilitation cell is hereby constituted," the DoP said in a notification.

The cell will be in constant touch with the major industry and business associations and sectoral groups on drugs and pharmaceuticals and will serve as the first contact for addressing any issue relating to the sector, it added.

The government has fixed a GST rate of 12 per cent on most of the essential drugs as against the current tax incidence of around 9 per cent.

However, some select medicines such as insulin will see a reduction in prices with the government revising GST rate downwards to 5 per cent from 12 per cent proposed earlier.