Earlier the company was asked to pay a limited amount as service tax, which was pooled in by the 88 member companies that treat their effluents at the facility. But after the introduction of GST, the unit has to shell out more money – though the rate was reduced to 12 per cent from a high 18 per cent.

The management was elated when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a Rs 1,000-crore national industrial upgradation package, under which the company was eligible for Rs 68 crore. “But it came with a condition that the company had to shell out Rs 20 crore as its share,” said a former director R Amirthakatesan. “The amount when split among members worked out to Rs 24 lakh each, which the members said they could not afford because of recession,” he added.

Pointing out that the plant was set up with contribution from the Centre and State Governments and the company on a 50:15:35 ratio, industries department officials said the firm could seek similar equation to share the financial load. 

Meanwhile, in a letter to Arun Jaitley on February 1, Vellore District Small and Tiny Industries Association sought doing away with GST for the company on par with that offered to common biomedical waste treatment companies.