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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Surat Textile Traders on Indefinite Strike Against GST -Damayantee Dhar

Surat Textile Traders on Indefinite Strike Against GST -Damayantee Dhar

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published Published on Jul 12, 2017   modified Modified on Jul 12, 2017
-TheWire.in

The traders have incurred a loss of over Rs 5000 crore in the last 22 days, while 15 lakh labourers have lost their jobs due to the shutdown.

Surat:
On July 8, Surat, the economic capital of Gujarat, witnessed an unprecedented protest against the new tax regime, the Goods and Service Tax (GST). Texile traders swarmed a three-km stretch on the Ring Road, which holds city’s main textile market, on a silent march, as their strike entered its 23rd day.

The mammoth rally, in which organisers claimed more than one lakh people participated, was organised under the leadership of Hitesh Sanklecha, a textile trader who has been on an indefinite hunger strike for the last nine days.

The Surat textile industry produces about four crore meters of fabric in the dyeing and textile mills in Pandesera, Sachin and Palsana areas every day, with a net worth of about Rs 150 crores. Over the last 22 days of strike, traders have incurred losses amounting to over Rs 5000 crore.

“It is not just the mill owners, textile traders at every level have incurred losses. Sales went down the day government announced that a new tax regime will be implemented. In fact, the products we shipped to whole sellers were returned, as nobody knew how the old stock would be priced,” said Champalal Bothra, a textile trader from Surat and secretary of GST Sangharsh Samiti, the newly floated organisation under whose banner the protests are being carried out.

GST Sangharsh Samiti is headed by traders who are also members of the Federation of Surat Textile Traders Association (FOSTTA). Interestingly, three key functionaries of the outfit also hold key positions in political parties.

Tarachand Kasat, the president of GST Sangharsh Samiti is also the executive member of the BJP’s Surat cell, and has been associated with the party for over 30 years now. Champalal Bothra, secretary of the organisation, holds the post of vice president in Surat city Congress and is general secretary in the state Congress economic cell. Jaylal Lalwani, the spokesperson of GST Sangharsh Samiti, is associated with the Aam Aadmi Party.

“After the declaration that a new tax regime would be implemented, we have met Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, Subramanian Swamy and minister of textile Smriti Irani, but in vain. Later, we met finance minister Arun Jaitley, and he assured us that he would bring up the issue in the meeting of the GST council. But when we got no response from the government, we decided to take our fight to the street. The organisation has been formed to fight the issue and once it is resolved the organisation shall be dissolved as well,” said Bothra.

No one from Surat’s textile sector, the country’s largest market for manmade fabric, wants to be under the GST tax regime, the GST Sangharsh Samiti said.

Please click here to read more.
 

TheWire.in, 11 July, 2017, https://thewire.in/156627/surat-textile-traders-protest-gst/


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