Indra Nooyi meets Jaitley; pitches for lower GST rates

PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi is learnt to have pitched for a lower GST rate on healthier beverages.

Nooyi, who is on an India visit, met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday. In the past too, soft drink makers have urged the government to differentiate aerated beverages within the GST framework based on sugar or calorie levels.

Last year, PepsiCo has announced its long-term plans to cut down on sugar and sodium in its products and focus on dialling up nutrition in its product portfolio. Soft drinks companies are also now increasingly pushing zero or low calorie beverages on the retail shelves.

Meanwhile, Nooyi is expected to call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday. She is likely to discuss PepsiCo’s investments, the company’s efforts to focus on locally-sourced innovations and nutritious products among other issues with the PM.

On a day when her schedule was packed with meetings with bottling partners and vendors, she also took time out to tweet her observations on India moving towards remonetisation. “Innovative India is starting to use digital where cash once dominated — turning demonetisation into remonetisation,” she tweeted.

Last month, in an analysts call, Nooyi had said that demonetisation had a significant impact on the company’s India business in the fourth quarter. She had also said that the company hopes by the time the second quarter rolls by, “we would be through the bulk of the demonetisation challenges. And the new currency and the digital currency will be back in circulation and we’ll be back to normal retail activity.”