A smart humanitarian step regarding GST elimination on the equipment, including wheelchairs, crutches and hearing aids by an 11 years old schoolboy.
As a part of his school project Eleven-year-old boy, Mehaan Doshi, a student of Class V of Hill Spring International School, initiated an online campaign on Change.org last week, highlighting the troubles faced by Divyang people and seeking GST exemption on the equipment for differently abled people, including wheelchairs, crutches and hearing aids. The current GST rate on these types of equipment is 5% and according to this smart Mumbai teen, it should be zero as this is the basic need for Divyang people.
“For persons with disabilities, their equipment like wheelchairs, crutches, hearing aids etc. are important for their basic mobility and survival. Unfortunately, these equipment are taxed, and make basic-living expensive for these persons with disabilities,” the petition said.
“Even today, most disability equipment, which includes assistive devices and rehabilitation aids for physically challenged persons, falls under the 5 per cent GST Rate. Which is why, I am asking the GST Council, Government of India, to drop the GST Tax amount on disability mobile devices from five per cent to zero per cent,” his petition said.
So far in the first stage of the project, the petition has already been signed by over 11,500 people and Doshi plans to submit the final draft of a petition to the GST Committee and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Mehaan took up the initiative by choosing the subject ‘Disability Discrimination’ for a school project after an inspirational talk by Nipun Malhotra, who works for the rights of disabled, at an event organized for CEOs by Mehaan’s father Chirag Doshi who is a well-known industrialist. In the talk, Malhotra shared his activism and talked about the injustice of levying GST on assistive aids and equipment used by differently abled people.
“Every year our school has an event around a certain theme and students have to think of a topic. This year’s theme was Sharing the Planet and Nipun uncle’s talk on disability and discrimination got me thinking about whether we were doing enough to share the planet with everyone. Nipun uncle mentioned how it was liked taxing someone for walking and that stayed with me. I discussed the topic with my teacher, and she was supportive.” – Mehaan Doshi, the student of Class 5th said.
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Mehaan’s mother, Tanaz Doshi, an entrepreneur told that Mehaan has visited schools where differently abled children study like the Jai Vakeel Research and Foundation Centre and Gateway School and he has also captured pictures at various stations and other public places which are disabled-inconvenient.
“He interacted with the students there as well as the teachers to understand the challenges they face,” she said. “All the government agencies should make such places Divyang-friendly on a priority basis,” she added.
The topic chose by Mehaan has made him a hero of the school, and he is quite excited with this enticement. “There is a school WhatsApp group where some of my classmates shared a picture of mine in a newspaper and many people congratulated me. I am being shown this much respect for the first time”, he laughs and tells.
