OPINION: e-Trip system being implemented in Punjab for Sept 1 to effect movement of goods

In spite of stiff opposition from trade and industry, the Punjab Government is determined to implement e-Trip system from September 1 which they call anti-evasion measure.
Assurances given by the Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on the matter are still assurances. Even Punjab Excise and taxation Commissioner Arurag Verma is silent on certain matters related to e-Trip.
Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal calls this e-Trip system to be anti-trade and anti-industry which will hamper free movement of goods within its own state.
The Mandal through there letter dated 16th August 2013 raised a number of points which the Excise & Taxation Department neither replied nor cleared its stand on the levy of e-Trip.
The state government is expecting to generate revenue of Rs.300 crores every year by levy of this new system.
Punjab Trade and Industry deposited Rs.15,000 crores VAT revenue in the year 2012-13 on which the state government did not spend even a single rupee. Traders and industrialists collected this amount voluntarily and deposited in to state exchequer.
If Punjab Government can give free electricity to the tune of Rs.6,500 crores in a year to the agriculturist then why he did not provide free of cost IT Infrastructure to the traders to implement their e-Trip system. Traders are already burden with heavy debt, bank loans, deep recessions and high appreciation of dollar against rupee. Imported raw material cost has gone up and it has severely affected production. Implementation of e-Trip system will further tighten  the grip of Inspector Raj and clerical work of the traders.
Mandal claims that if a judicial enquiry by a retired High Court Judge is conducted regarding the functioning of Excise and Taxation Department in the state and ICC barriers which are known as den of corruption, the government can get Rs. 1000 crores more revenue but the government will not do it reasons best known to them.
The then SP Vigilance Shiv Kumar had registered corruption cases in the year 2007 against 32 official of Excise & Taxation Department, Punjab but the state government never took any action on those registered cases, it shows the intention of the state government.
E-Trip system will hamper trade activities, free movement of goods and flight of the trade and industry from the Punjab due to Inspector Raj. Mandal demands that the state government should not make it a prestige issue and make e-Trip an optional not compulsory as small and medium traders and industrialists cannot implement it.
(The Author is president of Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal.)
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed by the author in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of City Air News.