GST@18%: Courses could cost more

CHENNAI: From decoding encryption for corporate espionage to performing robots assisted surgery, students today can take up various specialisations in their chosen careers. But GST might push up costs for students, colleges and hospitals with 18% taxation on digital content.

AIIMS-Delhi purchases general medical journals such as 'New England Journal of Medicine' and specialised publications like 'Journal of Mechanics in Medicine and Biology'. The former costs around $250 and the latter is priced at $1,750. The medical college buys thousands of such journals to keep staff and students up to date.

Medical colleges spend '50 lakh to '2 crore a year on library purchases. "Journals like the 'The Lancet' and 'New England Journal of Medicine' are crucial for research. Annual subscription for specialised journals cost '3.20 lakh) as much as $5,000 ('for, which is $5,900 (Rs 3.78 lakh) post-GST. With GST, courses could get more expensive," says Dr Denis Xavier, St John's Hospital, Bengaluru.

For engineering colleges like Sastra and VIT too this poses a problem as they try to get their students on track in subjects like blockchain, cybersecurity. The financial sector, which is dependent on graduates from NSE, BSE's diploma programmes, may also face cost escalation for talent in the capital markets, forex and bond trading.

"Last June, we were paying 0% tax. Then in December 1, 2016 15% service tax was introduced. It has now further increased to 18%.Apart from digital content, GST on auxiliary educational services like transport and catering will impact fees and enrollment. This could dilute core academic activities," says professor S Vaidhya subramaniam, dean, planning and development, SASTRA University .

Another problem is super specialties. For professionals wanting to study game theory or neural networks for machine learning, python in financial markets or algorithmic trading, such courses would get more expensive. Online players like Coursera, Classle, Great Lakes and 361DegreeMinds now have to pay more for services and content.

They argue that if the push were towards `Digital India' then it does not make sense to charge 18% for digital course material and 0% for printed matter. "Offline courses and content are completely exempt from GST. Being an online provider, we would attract GST," says K Ramachandran, chief strategy officer, 361 Degree Minds. "We believe in affordable education for the masses. So we won't be increasing course fee. We will be bearing the cost ourselves," says V Vaidyanathan, CEO and founder, Classle.

Source | http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/gst18-courses-could-cost-more/articleshow/59892850.cms

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Knowledge Repository

Khaitan & Co

Upcoming Lecture | ACTREC - BOSLA Annual lecture series (125th birth anniversary of father of library science, Padmashree Dr. S. R. Ranganathan) on Saturday, 12th August 2017 at Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC), Kharghar, Navi Mumbai. (Theme | 'MakerSpace')

Blog | http://pralhad-fyilibrarian.blogspot.in/

Website | https://sites.google.com/site/pralhadjadhavlib/home