Amid the criticism over the 28 percent goods and services (GST) tax on online gaming, Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said that he would “go back to the GST council and may be request it for consideration on the new regulatory framework”.

Speaking in the inaugural session at CNN-News18 Town Hall’s Delhi edition, the Minister said, “GST Council is not the Government of India. The council is represented by all State governments. It is a federal organization. State governments and finance ministers have come together and created a GST framework. That is a consequence of three years of their work.

“While we may quibble with the findings, we have to recognize the process of creating a framework, which has started in January 2023.”

The GST Council on July 11 decided to impose a 28 percent tax on the turnover of online gaming companies, horse racing and casinos.

“We are only in the nascent stages of creating a sustainable, permissible online gaming framework. It is better to slowly progress and evolve these frameworks. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that in digital space do everything for the next decade… It is better to do it right than to do it fast,” the minister said, according to a media statement put out by News18 yesterday.

Centred around the theme, ‘India’s road to 2024 Elections’, the Delhi chapter of ‘CNN-News18 Town Hall’ is aimed at facilitating discussions with policy-makers and opinion leaders to understand how political parties plan to captivate the attention of the voters.

The discussions revolve around various topics such as policies, manifestos, and strategies employed by each party.