Centre approves Seva Bhoj Yojna for religious bodies

All religious bodies, which have been in existence for at least five years and serve free food to at least 5,000 people in a month, will get the central share of the GST reimbursement into their accounts.

For this, the Centre has approved a new scheme, ‘Seva Bhoj Yojna’ with a total outlay of Rs 325 crore for the fiscal 2018-19 and 2019-20.

The scheme will be implemented by the Union culture ministry, the government announced in a statement on Friday.

“The scheme envisages to reimburse the Central government share of Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) and Integrated Goods and Service Tax (IGST) so as to lessen the financial burden of such charitable religious institutions who provide food/prasad/langar (community kitchen)/bhandara free of cost without any discrimination to public/devotees,” it added.

The institutions covered under Section 10 (23BBA) of the Income Tax Act, or registered under Section 12AA of Income Tax Act will be eligible for the grant under the scheme.

Charitable religious institutions registered under the Societies Registration Act or as a public trust under any law for the time being in force will also be eligible for the grant under the scheme.

To start with, the eligible religious institutions will have to first register at the Darpan portal, created by the Union government for registration of the non-government organisations.

“The ministry of culture will (also) register the eligible charitable religious institutions for a time period ending with finance commission period,” the government said.

The ministry would subsequently renew the registration of the institutions, “subject to the performance evaluation of the institutions.”

The entity/institution will be permitted to submit the reimbursement claim of the GST and central government's share of IGST to the designated authority of GST department at the state level in the prescribed format during the validity of registration.

“All applications along with supporting documents received from the institutions in the ministry shall be examined by the committee constituted for the purpose within 4 weeks and on the basis of the recommendation of the committee, competent authority in the ministry shall register charitable religious institutions for reimbursing claim of CGST and central government share of IGST paid on above mentioned specific items,” the government added.