NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha on Friday passed The Health Security se National Security Cess Bill, 2025, whose objective is to raise additional funds from what is widely called demerit or sin goods -- such as pan masala -- for "Health Security" and "National Security."

Replying to the discussion on The Health Security se National Security Cess Bill, 2025 in Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman thanks the members for participating in the debate.

"Public health is a State subject, and defence is on the Central list. We need to raise resources for defence to match today's needs," she said.

The Finance Minister said that the government wants to ensure that goods with demerits are not cheap.

She said that as a finance minister, her responsibility is to raise funds; she said this in response to some members asking why tax should be imposed on paan masala for the defence budget.

"No member would want a lower tax on paan masala," she asked. "Money can be used for anything, but collecting revenue is justified."

"Public health is a state domain. National defence is a domain of the Government of India. In this day and age, where credible defence capabilities are absolutely critical, we need to raise resources. Precision weapons, space assets, cyber operations, etc dominate modern conflicts. They are becoming capital-intensive," she said.

"Once the Defence Minister had said in a statement in this House, 'I'm unable to procure ammunition because I don't have money'. Everybody knows to whom I'm referring to," she said, without naming anyone. "The gap with which the Defence suffered, it took a long time to restore that kind of preparedness of our armed forces," she said, reemphasising the need for such a cess.