What is Consumer Welfare Fund & Its Operation Under GST

Rule-97 of CGST Rules 2017

Con­sumer Wel­fare Fund.- 

(1) All cred­its to the Con­sumer Wel­fare Fund shall be made under sub-rule (5) of rule

• Any amount, hav­ing been cred­it­ed to the Fund, ordered or direct­ed as payable to any claimant by orders of the prop­er offi­cer, appel­late author­i­ty or Appel­late Tri­bunal or court, shall be paid from the
• Any util­i­sa­tion of amount from the Con­sumer Wel­fare Fund under sub-sec­tion (1) of sec­tion 58 shall be made by deb­it­ing the Con­sumer Wel­fare Fund account and cred­it­ing the account to which the amount is trans­ferred for utilisation.
• The Gov­ern­ment shall, by an order, con­sti­tute a Stand­ing Com­mit­tee with a Chair­man, a Vice-Chair­man, a Mem­ber Sec­re­tary and such oth­er Mem­bers as it may deem fit and the Com­mit­tee shall make rec­om­men­da­tions for prop­er util­i­sa­tion of the mon­ey cred­it­ed to the Con­sumer Wel­fare Fund for wel­fare of the
• The Com­mit­tee shall meet as and when nec­es­sary, but not less than once in three
• Any agency or organ­i­sa­tion engaged in con­sumer wel­fare activ­i­ties for a peri­od of three years reg­is­tered under the pro­vi­sions of the Com­pa­nies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013) or under any oth­er law for the time being in force, includ­ing vil­lage or man­dal or sami­ti lev­el co-oper­a­tives of con­sumers espe­cial­ly Women, Sched­uled Castes and Sched­uled Tribes, or any indus­try as defined in the Indus­tri­al Dis­putes Act, 1947 (14 of 1947) rec­om­mend­ed by the Bureau of Indi­an Stan­dards to be engaged for a peri­od of five years in viable and use­ful research activ­i­ty which has made, or is like­ly to make, sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion in for­mu­la­tion of stan­dard mark of the prod­ucts of mass con­sump­tion, the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment or the State Gov­ern­ment may make an appli­ca­tion for a grant from the Con­sumer Wel­fare Fund:

Pro­vid­ed that a con­sumer may make appli­ca­tion for reim­burse­ment of legal expens­es incurred by him as a com­plainant in a con­sumer dis­pute, after its final adjudication.

• All appli­ca­tions for grant from the Con­sumer Wel­fare Fund shall be made by the appli­cant Mem­ber Sec­re­tary, but the Com­mit­tee shall not con­sid­er an appli­ca­tion, unless it has been inquired into in mate­r­i­al details and rec­om­mend­ed for con­sid­er­a­tion accord­ing­ly, by the Member
• The Com­mit­tee shall have powers — 
  1. to require any appli­cant to pro­duce before it, or before a duly autho­rised Offi­cer of the Gov­ern­ment such books, accounts, doc­u­ments, instru­ments, or com­modi­ties in cus­tody and con­trol of the appli­cant, as may be nec­es­sary for prop­er eval­u­a­tion of the application;
  2. to require any appli­cant to allow entry and inspec­tion of any premis­es, from which activ­i­ties claimed to be for the wel­fare of con­sumers are stat­ed to be car­ried on, to a duly autho­rised offi­cer of the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment or, as the case may be, State Government;
  3. to get the accounts of the appli­cants audit­ed, for ensur­ing prop­er util­i­sa­tion of the grant;
  4. to require any appli­cant, in case of any default, or sup­pres­sion of mate­r­i­al infor­ma­tion on his part, to refund in lump-sum, the sanc­tioned grant to the Com­mit­tee, and to be sub­ject to pros­e­cu­tion under the Act;
  5. to recov­er any sum due from any appli­cant in accor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the Act;
  6. to require any appli­cant, or class of appli­cants to sub­mit a peri­od­i­cal report, indi­cat­ing prop­er util­i­sa­tion of the grant;
  7. to reject an appli­ca­tion placed before it on account of fac­tu­al incon­sis­ten­cy, or inac­cu­ra­cy in mate­r­i­al particulars;
  8. to rec­om­mend min­i­mum finan­cial assis­tance, by way of grant to an appli­cant, hav­ing regard to his finan­cial sta­tus, and impor­tance and util­i­ty of nature of activ­i­ty under pur­suit, after ensur­ing that the finan­cial assis­tance pro­vid­ed shall not be misutilised;
  9. to iden­ti­fy ben­e­fi­cial and safe sec­tors, where invest­ments out of Con­sumer Wel­fare Fund may be made and make rec­om­men­da­tions, accordingly;
  10. to relax the con­di­tions required for the peri­od of engage­ment in con­sumer wel­fare activ­i­ties of an applicant;
  11. to make guide­lines for the man­age­ment, admin­is­tra­tion and audit of the Con­sumer Welfare

The Cen­tral Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion Coun­cil and the Bureau of Indi­an Stan­dards shall rec­om­mend to the Goods and Ser­vices Tax Coun­cil, the broad guide­lines for con­sid­er­ing the projects or pro­pos­als for the pur­pose of incur­ring expen­di­ture from the Con­sumer Wel­fare Fund.