The 47th Meeting (28-29 June 2022, Chandigarh) introduced 5% GST on pre-packaged food items, removed hotel room exemptions, constituted the online gaming GoM, and rationalized rates across LED, ink, and cutlery categories.
| Item / Service | From | To | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-packaged rice/wheat/flour | Exempt | 5% | Packed <25kg with brand |
| Pre-packaged curd/paneer/honey | Exempt | 5% | Packed <25kg with brand |
| Hotel rooms (<₹1,000/night) | Exempt | 12% | All budget hotels |
| Hospital rooms (>₹5,000/day) | Exempt | 5% | Non-ICU, without ITC |
| LED lamps and lights | 12% | 18% | All LED lighting products |
| Tetra Pak packaging paper | 12% | 18% | Aseptic packaging material |
| Ostomy appliances | 12% | 5% | Medical devices/supplies |
| Ropeway transport | 18% | 5% | Tourism/passenger transport |
The 47th Meeting introduced 5% GST on pre-packaged and labelled food items including rice, wheat, flour (atta), pulses, curd, paneer, honey, jaggery, puffed rice, and similar staples — when sold in packages <25kg bearing a registered brand or label. Previously exempt. Important: Loose/unbranded food remains fully exempt (0%). This only applies to packaged food. Estimated revenue impact: ₹7,000-8,000 Cr annually. This was controversial — opposition states called it 'tax on poor man's food'. Industry argued it brings transparency to the packaged food sector.
Before this change, hotel rooms priced below ₹1,000/night were exempt from GST. This created artificial price clustering where hotels would keep rates at ₹999 to avoid tax. The Council's rationale: (1) Remove price distortion — hotels were suppressing rates artificially; (2) Revenue from budget hotel segment (massive in India); (3) ITC benefit — hotel owners can now claim input tax credit (they couldn't when exempt); (4) Level playing field with OYO, FabHotels etc. who were structuring around the threshold. The 12% rate was chosen as the lowest non-exempt slab for services.
Several items moved from 12% to 18%: LED lamps/lights, printing/writing/drawing ink, knives/spoons/forks (non-electric kitchen cutlery), power-driven pumps for fuel dispensing, Tetra Pak (aseptic packaging paper), and maps/charts/atlases (5→12%). Reason: These were placed in lower brackets during GST launch (July 2017) to ease transition. The Council assessed that after 5 years, the economy could absorb correct classification. LED lamps especially were being misclassified under concessional rates meant for energy-saving devices.
OIDAR = Online Information Database Access and Retrieval services (Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime, Google Cloud, etc.). Clarification: For B2C (business-to-consumer) cross-border OIDAR services, the place of supply is where the consumer is located (i.e., India). This means: (1) Foreign OIDAR providers (Netflix US) must register for GST in India and charge 18% on Indian subscribers; (2) Already required since 2017 but compliance was low; (3) Aggregators/app stores made responsible for tax collection; (4) Extended to include cloud storage, online gaming subscriptions, and digital education platforms.
The 47th Meeting was held on 28-29 June 2022 in Chandigarh — notably a 2-day meeting (most are single-day). It was one of the most controversial meetings due to the pre-packaged food taxation decision. The extended duration was needed because: (1) Detailed discussion on food taxation with state-level disagreements; (2) Rate rationalization across multiple categories; (3) Constitution of GoM on online gaming; (4) Hospital/hotel taxation new entries. The next meeting (48th) was held 6 months later in December 2022.
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