Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government has decided to slash the ticket rate of Karunya lottery from Rs 50 to Rs 40. It had earlier decided to increase the price of other six tickets from Rs 30 to Rs 40. The price change would be effective from March 1.
Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac said that the ticket rates were increased to prevent the agents from suffering loses and the prize money from being cut after the Goods and Services Tax (GST) of the lottery was increased from 12 per cent to 28 per cent.
Currently, the agents get discounts in 3 slabs: 24 per cent for up to 2000 tickets, 24.5 per cent for 2,001 to 10,000 tickets, and 25.25 per cent for over 10,000 tickets. This will now be revised to 23.5, 24.25 and 25 per cent, respectively.
For a Rs 30 ticket, an agent was getting Rs 6.43 in the first slab. This will rise now to Rs 7.34. In the second slab, there will be a corresponding rise is Rs 6.56 to Rs 7.57 and in the third, from Rs 6.76 to Rs. 7.81.
However, the government's profit share would be reduced from 14.8 per cent to approximately 6.6 per cent.
The new prize share (old figure in bracket)
Pournami - 57.7 % (51.94%)
Win-win - 58.11% (51.84%)
Sthree Shakti - 57.9% (51.94%)
Akshaya - 58.28% (52.01%)
Karunya Plus - 58.08% (51.99%)
Nirmal - 58.11% (51.86%)
Karunya - 57.94% (51.94%)
At the same time, when 12 per cent GST was being levied, the government received only 6 per cent of the tax collected. With the GST being increased to 28 per cent, the state government would get 14 per cent.