Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today assured the Coaching Centres Association (CCA) of Kashmir of treating them at par with their Jammu counterparts over the issue of service tax collection, which has been initiated in Kashmir but put on hold in Jammu.In a statement issued to media, the association welcomed the assurance given by Chief Minister during a meeting with coaching centre representatives at CM’s residence at Gupkar. According to a statement issued to KNS, the coaching sector has been under stress due to the repeated notices from income tax department for paying of the service tax. “Government had imposed 10.5 percent service tax on coaching industry, but the irony is that the government was not imposing it in Jammu as the centres there got it stayed,” said G N Var, chairman CCA. “But for the last three months we in Kashmir were getting notices to pay the tax.”
In the meeting the members of the association told the chief minister that the sector does not come under the service sector, “as the coaching becomes necessary for a student due to bad state of education sector in the state.”“The chief minister patiently listened to our demands and assured us that the same law would be followed throughout the state,” said Var. “He said that if the service tax collection has been stopped in Jammu then it won’t be initiated in Kashmir.”The association said that the imposition of service tax would have meant an added burden for students. “We are been asked to provide free tuition to a percentage of deserving students from poor background and now the new service tax would have meant more burden for us,” said Var. “The coaching centres would have simply passed on the tax money on to the students thus depriving a large number of students an option of quality education.” The association led by Var also included Mohammed Shafi Pandit former Public service commission chairman and patron of Ascent group, Prof Masood head of Brilliant Coaching Centre and all the representatives of major coaching centres in the valley. (KNS)