The GST Council on Saturday reduced tax rates on a slew of items including refrigerators, washing machines and small televisions from 28 percent to 18 percent, and cleared widely demanded exemption on sanitary pads.

Adi Godrej, chairman of Godrej Group and Kishore Biyani, CEO of Future Group spoke to CNBC-TV18 about the GST changes and its impact on the industry.

“I think it is a very positive move and getting rid of this very high rate of 28 percent in many cases is a good move. I think it will add to GDP growth that in turn will lead to better collection. So overall it will be a win-win move,” Godrej said.

“In our country, most consumer products are very underpenetrated. Many people cannot afford them and one of the reasons had been we have very high tax rates, so bringing down tax rates makes a lot of sense. Having tax rate of 28 percent on consumer durables was to my mind very high. I am glad, they brought it down on most of them,” he added.

“As incomes increase, penetration will increase and consumption will increase which will be very good in the long run for the country,” said Godrej.

“We are seeing a formalisation of economy on many counts and we believe this whole thing of the new GST rates and the slashing of rates which has come in is a very welcome move because we believe the government is now understanding more and more about GST and reacting to what people exactly want,” said Biyani.

“We are looking at double digit growths on most of the categories and maybe we can go into high-teens, little bit more than that, depending on the category but definitely we are seeing growth across categories but some categories can grow maybe more than 20 percent also,” he added.