Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

World’s largest Community Kitchen is under a burden after the implementation of GST. An extra burden of 10 crores has been laid on the socio-religious activity of Gurudwara, temples and Golden Temple Complex situated in Amritsar. A million liters of water and hundred of tons of wheat flour, vegetables, clarified butter and other grocery items are used annually used by Golden Temple Complex and other Gurudwaras to prepare langar. All these items, required to prepare langar come under 5-18% GST bracket. These community kitchens feed about 50000 devotees in weekdays and about 100000 devotees on weekend and festivals.

Langars are funded from the donations made by Gurudwara and SGPC (Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee) has about an 1100 crore annual budget to manage the gurudwaras under it. Hundreds of people volunteer for cooking food, serving it and then washing the utensils on the daily basis in the name of ‘Seva’. This service is a part of Sikh religion since ages. A request has been made by the president of SGPC to remove the Sikh body from GST slabs as they are performing free community services and its a burdensome for them.

Earlier also, Punjab Government had exempted all the purchases made for langar by SGPC from VAT.

By Mahak