Golden Temple has paid over Rs 2-crore GST on langar items.

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 1

The Center on Friday waved off the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on langar. This was a long pending demand of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and Lucknow Gurudwara Pabandhak Committee (LGPC).The lone Akali Dal minister in the NDA government, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, had been demanding the waiver.

Importantly, the GST is not served on food served in langars itself, but is charged on the purchase of raw materials used to prepare the food.

Golden Temple has paid over Rs 2-crore GST on langar items. 

The purchase for the Golden Temple’s kitchen, which feeds between 55,000 to 60,000 devotees daily, comes to around Rs 75 crore annually.

On Tuesday, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, who along with his wife and Union Minister Harsimrat Badal paid obeisance at the shrine, had said that the GST on langar purchases at the Golden Temple would be waived.