Is ‘fat tax’ of any use

Kerala’s Left Democratic Front government has come up with the idea of taxing junk food such as burgers and pizzas served in branded restaurants at 14.5 per cent. The budget proposal itself is not a bad one — it’s always healthy to tax people so they stay healthy — but 14.5 per cent seems well over the top when you consider eating junk food is no longer the preserve of the relatively well-off in India as it was in the 1980s, when foreign brands first came in. The cheapest McDonald’s burger today is vegetarian and costs just Rs 32.

This so-called “fat tax” is imposed in some countries in the West to fight rising obesity levels and the pressure obesity-related health issues put on the public health system. That said, it is unlikely that a large proportion of Kerala’s population is bingeing on junk food when the state has such a wonderful cuisine of its own.

The shares of some international fast-food companies fell a couple of per cent on Indian bourses after the Kerala budget proposal, and these firms are now debating how much of this to pass on to the consumer. Some say the “fat tax” is unlikely to stop consumers from consuming. So what’s the point It is not improbable that the state’s Communist-led government finds it convenient to tax global capitalists to fill coffers depleted by prohibition in the state. If health was the only issue, what about other deep-fried, fat-rich, oil-saturated and artery-clogging foods of indigenous origin