Tamil Nadu : Devotees relieved as temple services, rituals spared of GST

Chennai : Devotees, who want to fulfil vows in various temples in Tamil Nadu besides ‘sevas’, special poojas and taking part in the ritual of pulling gold and silver chariots, will be spared of GST.

Devotees book for darshan and other services online. This will continue even after GST is introduced on July 1. But, devotees, who use lodgings offered by the state-run Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department in temple towns, whose tariff is above 1,000 per day, will have to pay more.

“Some sections in GST Act exempt temples from paying tax. This includes sevas and darshans in temples in places like Palani, Tiruchendur and Rameswaram. All prasadams, including the Palani panchamirtham, are also exempted under GST,” chartered accountant G Sekar told TOI.

Thus devotees can book ‘sevas’ online. “No additional money should be collected by the temples in the name of service tax or GST and only the tariff for darshan or seva will be collected by the temples,” said Sekar.

Meanwhile, the HR&CE department. which is managing 38,000 temples in Tamil Nadu, has asked the state government to waive GST on temples.

“We have given a list based on the services in various temples in the state for which there should not be any tax. As of now, there is no tax or service charge on these services provided in temple. We want the situation to prevail after July 1,” said a senior HR&CE official.

Some of the temple towns in Tamil Nadu have rooms owned by HR&CE department. “We have rooms for various tariffs for devotees in Palani and other big temple towns. We came to know that GST will be levied on rooms whose the tariff is high. Some of the rooms have air conditioners and their tariff will be above 1,000. GST will be levied on them as per the GST act,” said the official.

Source : TOI