AC Manufacturer Blue Star Halts Jammu and Kashmir Investment Over GST Issue

Blue Star, an air conditioning manufacturing giant has revealed that the organization has held a heavy investment of around INR 220 crores in Jammu and Kashmir as the company is in doubt over the continuation of excise duty relaxation after the roll out of goods and service tax. Blue Star’s Room Air Conditioners Division vice-president CP Mukundan Menon was man in talks and told that, “Jammu and Kashmir government has not clarified whether the relief in excise duty is going to continue in that state after the GST imposition, As a result of this, we have put on hold a Rs. 220 crore new investment in Samba district.”

In other rounds of talk, the company also wanted to bring energy convenient air conditioners in the 18 percent slab rate under the goods and service tax. Blue Star Joint Managing Director B Thiagarajan mentioned that, “We want the government to make it 18 percent in Goods and Services Tax, which is revenue neutral and told that This (18 percent slab) should also be extended to the educational institutions and government hospitals as it could be tracked by GST numbers.”

“We would continue to grow aggressively in the room AC business by 20 percent and achieve 12.5 percent market share,” he added. As per the reports, Inverter AC presented by the producer in the recent 2-3 years are more promising in the matter of power with around 40 percent overall efficient. The company head also mentioned that Inverter AC’s are very advance in the current generation and saves an overall 65 percent of total power consumption while comparing between one star AC with a five star AC with a total of 40 percent.

Read Also: Brief Information Over GST Impact on Indian Businesses