GST Council Meet: Sanitary Napkins Excluded From Tax

After 27 GST Council Meetings the 28th meet finally decided to exclude sanitary napkins from the Goods and Services tax. During the initial GST roll out, Sindoor, condoms, contraception were made tax free along with basic food amenities but sanitary napkins remained under the GST.

After a number of protests from women who felt like their importance were overlooked. Sanitary napkins is a necessity for all women and imposing tax for as long as the Government did was utterly shameful.

The exemption of pads from the GST comes more than a year after a huge protest from the Students Federation of India. More than 300 female students sent Finance Minister Arun Jaitley sanitary napkins with a message.

The Students sent him sanitary napkins with ‘bleed without fear’ and ‘bleed without tax’ written on them. The students desperately tried to get the Government to reconsider the 12% tax on sanitary napkins.

Finally a year later Indian women were heard and the napkins were exempted from the tax.