MUMBAI: Baba Ramdev today took a shot at the government for imposing high tax on telecasting devotional TV channels.
The Patanjali founder said that "it would be really shameful, if we would have to give money even in the name of faith and I never expected such kind of behaviour from this government."
"The government was demanding 1 lakh rupees from all us. To which, we said that please don't impose tax on sadhus and saints. You are religious people, you love your country, you follow religion but we hope to get free from it, because then if people want to hear or see any baba's discourse live, baba would have to give One Lakh Rupees per day from his own pocket. A baba can't afford so much of money. The government wants Rs 32 crore in total to show all the channels like Aastha and Vedic," he added.
Ramdev was speaking at an event to mark the launch of Aastha mobile app in New Delhi. The app is claimed to be the first of its kind, which will help users in getting their desired spiritual content. It will include programmes from spiritual TV channels such as Aastha and Arihant.
"This is an iconic moment for India, when it comes to publicise about spirituality. People would be able to see all the live programmes of all the four channels on the app. They can also see the repeat telecasts of all the programmes that came in nine days back," said the yoga guru.
Aastha plans to soon to launch its Tamil, Telugu and Malaylam channels. Ramdev said that the infrastructure is ready for the channels to go live.
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