Despite the fact that trading community of the country is still an admirer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is very impressed with his positive attitude and thinking towards the traders and small industries, yet in view of the current economic downturn and the indifferent attitude of the Ministers & bureaucrats towards domestic trade, the traders across country have started getting disillusioned with the government.
After the BJP government came to power, the traders had great hope that the attitude of the government towards the traders would change and the traders in the country would get better focus and ample opportunities to grow business in an easy and a cohesive business atmosphere but nothing changes in their lives and traders remain neglected as ever before.
National President of CAIT BC Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal while reacting on the issue said that despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing his mandate to strengthen traders and domestic trade on several occasions, the deliberative and executive wing of the Government is leaving no stone unturned in neglecting the traders and their issues and this treatment is under the context when CAIT with traders across Country led several campaigns to adopt PM Modi’s call for Digital India, Skill India etc. CAIT led the traders from front to launch an aggressive campaign for adoption & acceptance of Digital payments, adoption of GST, etc.
Despite apprehensions, the trading community did not leg behind in extending full support for the implementation of GST in the Country. Though traders faced several problems caused by demonetisation, yet it outrightly supports the Government to meet the mandate of Prime Minister to clean the system from black money and created a positive atmosphere in the Country but despite all such efforts, the trader’s remains neglected.
In view of this situation, the CAIT has convened a meeting of its National Governing Council in Patna on March 5-6 which will be participated by prominent trade leaders across Country and will consider current business scenario in the Country and burning issues of the traders and will decide future strategy.
Both Bhartia & Khandelwal said that despite the efforts of Government to simplify GST system, it has become a very complicated to the extent that even after paying tax in time, the traders are forced to pay same tax again in event of fault of corresponding trader, inefficiencies of the GST portal is leading to mental torture, blockage of refunds with the Department and several other contentious issues are haunting the traders but no one cares. E Commerce giants are destroying and devastating domestic trade to a great extent and despite of several strict warnings by Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, these e-giants are continuing their unethical business practices in full swing and no action is being taken.
The ED has been investigating them for the last two years but so far no report has been out. The FDI policy is being violated right under the nose of the government and no action has been taken so far. The Food Safety Authority is making arbitrary decisions causing lot of harassment but no one is listening. No foolproof security for traders & commercial markets and regular incidents occurred each day with traders in different parts of the Country but traders are helpless. In these conditions, conducting business has become the most difficult task.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi while accepting the request of the traders had implemented the Mudra scheme for the people who have never been funded. It is also true that lakhs of crores of rupees have been disbursed under the Mudra Yojana, but it is also a fact that the beneficiaries for whom Mudra Yojana was conceived, didn’t got the loan and that is the reason why NPA is increasing in Mudra Scheme.
Bhartia and Khandelwal expressed their apprehension that it seems that Prime Minister Modi is not being given the right feedback about trade and business issues otherwise there is no reason that contrary to the Prime Minister’s vision, the traders are being neglected. They said that despite all the facilities from the Government to corporate sector, their contribution to GDP is merely 15% whereas the non corporate sector despite devoid of any benefit or scheme from the Government is contributing 45% to national GDP and yet the inclination of Ministers towards Corporate sector is an unending exercise.
