Pune: “As the government has categorised Classical Music programmes in 'Luxurious' segment, 28 per cent of Goods and Services Tax (GST) that is levied on the tickets is leading to a drop in the number of people going to these events,” said Shrinivas Joshi, Executive President of Arya sangeet Prasarak Mandal while addressing the media on Thursday.

He said that GST is levied on the tickets that cost more than Rs 250, and hence, people willing to attend a classical music concert will have to pay a much higher amount for the tickets than they did earlier.

“It's not possible for us to drop the rates of the tickets to help the audience, as it would incur huge losses to the organisers. For that past 12 years, we never increased the rates of the tickets for Sawai Gandharva Music Festival, however, due to GST, this year we have no option but to raise the tickets. This will highly affect the senior citizens as well as other classical music lovers,” Joshi expressed.

He also questioned that while government has brought tax on cinema down to five per cent, why it is giving such partial treatment to classical music?
“We have already given a letter to Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, National Vice-President, BJP, requesting the government to exempt Classical Music concerts from GST, and will also be forwarding this letter to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitly. State Minister of Finance, Sudheer Mungantiwar too has assured us that he will look into the matter,” Joshi said.