State-level Beopar Sammelan to be held in Amritsar against “anti-trade policies” of Punjab Government, decides state executive of PPBM

Ludhiana, March 26, 2023: Today, the state executive members' meeting of Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal (PPBM) was held under the leadership of President Pyara Lal Seth, General Secretary LR Sodhi, General Secretary Sameer Jain, General Secretary Sunil Mehra, District President Arvinder Makkar, District General Secretary Ayush Agarwal and Chairman Pawan Lahar in which the problems faced by the traders were discussed.

Speaking on the occasion, the leaders said a budget of Rs 1.96 lakh crore has been announced by the Punjab government, in which a provision of only Rs 3700 crore has been made for trade and industry, out of which there is a provision of electricity subsidy of Rs 3400 crore. Punjab government has given step-motherly treatment to trade and industry as compared to farmers, health sector and education sector, they added.

Further, they said it has been 6 years since VAT was abolished across the country, but the hanging sword of VAT on the traders and industrialists of Punjab is still there. No new OTS scheme was introduced after the OTS scheme for VAT that was introduced in 2013-14 and 2014-15. Traders of Punjab demand from the government that such an OTS scheme should be brought in which all the pending cases of VAT could be abolished.

The problems related to GST were also discussed in the meeting, like before the amendment in GST, to get ITC, the value of ITC had to be entered manually in GSTR 3B. But due to lack of proper knowledge and complexity in GST, small traders and industrialists could not file returns properly due to which their ITC is pending. There is also a problem in the activation of some suspended GSTIN.

The PPBM leaders said the cost of these total GST pending cases is around Rs 300-400 crores and the total budget of the Punjab government for traders is only Rs 150 crores.

They said the Punjab government has made a provision for a single window system under the New Industrial Policy 2022, but the situation is something else at the ground level. Today, in order to bring Punjab's single window system in comparison to states like Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, the industry policy will have to be amended and the scope of single window system will have to be increased from land revenue department and bring other departments like GST, PSPCL and all other necessary departments under one roof.

In today's meeting, it was decided that the new trader's policy for the traders will have to be brought in Punjab and it will have to be integrated with the Centre's traders’ policy. All these demands would be forwarded to Bhagwant Mann's state government and efforts would be made to press upon the government to accept these demands as early as possible. The state government would also be urged to ensure a trade-friendly atmosphere in Punjab so that the traders of Punjab could compete with the traders of other states and countries as well.

Further, the PPBM leaders said next month, a Punjab Beopar Sammelan would be held in Amritsar, to further discuss and chalk out the future strategy towards pending issues of traders' community of the state.

If necessary, the businessmen of Punjab will protest against the not so friendly attitude of Punjab government.