CAIT Announces Nationwide Movement
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which had organised the Bharat Vyapar Bandh on the 26th of February, had received a massive support. Seeing the response, the CAIT has announced its next phase of national agitation on GST & E-Commerce aggressively and this time the CAIT has laid focus on States across country. The campaign will begin from 5th of March and will continue till 5th of April against the GST amendments and mal-practices of foreign E-commerce Companies. CAIT has said that both these issues are directly related to the 8 crore traders of the country and till the logical resolution of these two issues is achieved, this movement of traders will continue throughout the country. At present, traders across the country are badly plagued by the provisions of GST and the constant arbitrariness of foreign companies in e-commerce and now the traders are either forced to resolve these issues or shut their business.
National President of CAIT Mr. B C Bhartia and Secretary General Mr. Praveen Khandelwal informed that a video conference was held today in which more than 275 prominent leaders from all the states and union territories of the country participated and decided unanimously to launch a national wide campaign on these two issues. It is not the Centre but the States who are more responsible to dilute the spirit of GST ie to their own likings and ow they can’t escape from their responsibilities. CAIT alleged that the state governments have left no stone unturned to distort the GST because of their own interests and their dogma which has led to the sufferings of traders and the traders across the Country have decided to expose the States and therefore a comprehensive and aggressive campaign across all the states will be launched.
In this context, CAIT has urged the Union Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman that since she is the Chairman of GST Council, she should initiate dialogues with CAIT immediately about the current distorted nature of GST. On the other hand, while appreciating the efforts of Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goel, CAIT has urged him to issue a new press note, removing the shortcomings of the Press Note 2 of FDI policy and also finalize and release e-commerce policy since the FDI policy is being grossly violated by foreign e-commerce companies.
Since Elections will be held in 5 states in the next few months and as a vote bank in all the states, the trading community holds a huge majority in strength and numbers and can be a deciding factor for the victory and defeat of any political party. Hence the decision of CAIT to launch a nationwide campaign amid elections and the anger of traders can affect the prospects of every political party
Mr. Bhartia and Mr. Khandelwal said that in the next phase of CAIT’s national movement on GST and e-commerce, starting from March 5 all trade organizations across the country will celebrate “Agitational Month” through which more than 40 thousand traders association of the country will submit memorandum to Governor, Chief Minister, Finance Minister, Principal Secretary (Finance), GST Commissioner and Chief Minister and District collectors in respective States. Beside, the CAIT chapters will also give memorandum to the President of all national parties and state-level parties.
Mr. Bhartia and Mr. Khandelwal informed that on March 13, traders associations will picket in more than 600 districts of the country registering their anger, while on March 20, trader rallies will be held in all the districts of the country. On the 26th March, dharna will be held outside the houses of the MPs of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members. CAIT will also make extensive use of social media in this movement. They also informed that in the month of March itself, CAIT will also hold state-level conferences in all the states of the country and in this way five zonal conferences will be held in the country in which trade leaders of the states under respective zones will participate in this conference.
