Healthcare expert pitches for GST on antibiotics a la tobacco, alcohol
GST is necessary to protect medicines whose misuse permanently destroys their effectiveness, says expert
A healthcare expert from the city wanted the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to impose increased GST on the antibiotics similar to differential taxation on tobacco, alcohol, and unhealthy foods to protect medicines whose misuse permanently destroys their effectiveness.
While advocating for enhanced investment in health with priority to primary care, prevention and system resilience, the president of Infection Control Academy of India (ICAI) Dr Ranga Reddy Burri said that a progressive Goods and Services Tax (GST) structure on antibiotics, aligned with the WHO AWaRe classification, to correct misuse, preserve last-resort medicines, and generate ringfenced funding for AMR containment. This is not a call for indiscriminate taxation, he said, adding it is a call for using pricing as a public policy instrument to protect a critical national medical resource.
Dr Rangareddy said that AMR was a perpetual pandemic; it is not a distant or theoretical threat antimicrobial resistance is not a future risk. It is a perpetual pandemic—continuous, cumulative, and irreversible once established. India’s surveillance data clearly demonstrate rising resistance across common pathogens, declining treatment success, prolonged hospitalisation, and escalating healthcare costs. Routine infections are becoming harder to treat. Surgeries, cancer care, intensive care, and childbirth were increasingly exposed to avoidable risk.
Dr Burri recalled, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had repeatedly highlighted AMR at the national level. India’s National Action Plan on AMR 2.0 (NAP-AMR 2.0) provides a strong strategic framework focused on surveillance, stewardship, diagnostics, and awareness. Yet implementation remains uneven. Only a limited number of States and Union Territories have operationalised State Action Plans, he said.
Proposing the progressive GST, Dr Burri talked on - Access antibiotics first- and second-line treatments for common infections GST: Retain the existing low rate (approximately 5 per cent) to ensure affordability. Watch antibiotics- Higher resistance potential require close monitoring GST- Increase to 12 per cent. Reserve antibiotics Last-resort drugs for confirmed multidrug-resistant infections GST- Increase to 24 per cent or higher. He said that this approach would not make essential medicines unaffordable. “We tax tobacco because it causes cancer. We tax alcohol because it destroys lives.
We tax sugary drinks because they fuel chronic disease. Antibiotic misuse destroys the future of modern medicine itself. This proposal is not a revenue grab. It is a life-preserving, fiscally responsible intervention that complements regulation, strengthens state capacity, and protects India’s therapeutic arsenal,” said Dr Burri.
