Lottery sellers meet Uddhav for streamlining GST

A delegation of lottery agents and sellers today called upon Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray at the latter's residence here and demanded streamlining of the GST levied upon the sector.

Chief of the Maharashtra State Lottery Agents-Sellers Association Ramakant Achrekar said though the GST was touted as 'One nation one tax', there are actually two tax slabs for selling the lottery tickets.

"If a lottery of a particular state is sold in the same state, 12 per cent GST is levied, however, if it is sold in another state, 28 per cent GST is levied. This is unfair to us," Achrekar told reporters after meeting Thackeray, whose party is a constituent of the BJP-led state and Central governments.

He said 90 per cent of the amount received through the sale of lottery tickets goes into payout of the prize money while rest is spent on paying commissions to various entities like agents, etc, which makes the business unprofitable.

Snehalkumar Shah, president of the Maharashtra State Lottery Agents Association, said the delegation apprised the Sena chief about the "closure of 70 per cent businesses" since the GST came into effect, which he said had led to the unemployment of around 2 lakh people in the sector.

"This industry will not be able to survive beyond a period of 2-3 months if a uniform GST of 12 per cent is not implemented," he said.

Shah said they also demanded initiation of the online lottery sale as promised by the Maharashtra government.

"We have told Uddhav ji that if the online sale of lottery starts, there will be an employment of at least 15 lakh new people and the government can earn a revenue of up to Rs 2,000 crore," he said.

Shah said Thackeray assured them to take up the issue with the state government as well as with Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley.