Delegation of COSIA,Vidarbha led by Chairman CA Julfesh Shah met Minister of Industries,Maharashtra Shri Uday Samant & submitted a memorandum on various issues pertaining to industries.In the memorandum it represented the issue regarding levy of tax & stamp duty on MIDC plots on ready reckonor basis in transfer of plots on unit to unit basis.
It states that the rates of property on Ready Reckoner Rates are usually implemented in areas where there is no prescribed rate to calculate tax on property, or calculate income on sale of property or transfer the long term “lease hold rights” or to levy stamp duty in case of commercial transactions of immovable property.
These rates are fixed on earlier commercial transactions of property that have taken place in similar locations. These “Ready Reckoner Rates” are taken as the base to calculate the property tax for local bodies including Gram Panchayats. It is also taken as based to calculate “Stamp Duty ” and also as based on evaluation of Direct Tax by the Revenue Department (Income Tax).
MIDC offers its land for lease specifically for industrial use only & thus rates of allotment for lease is also much less than Ready Reckoner Rates. Therefore taking “Ready Reckoner Rates” as base in MIDC areas is totally illogical and has its adverse effects like Inflated Stamp Duty, Inflated Capital Gain Tax & Inflated levy of property tax by local bodies, which results in hindrance of industrial development of the state.
The memorandum also stated that Agro processing industries in MSME like Rice Mills , Dal Mills , etc., are the major industries in Vidarbha region especially in the backward regions of Bhandara , Gondia, & Chandrapur. They mainly provide employment to local and minimally skilled people.
There is no GST payable on the sales and purchases. Hence, the incentives which are primarily based on the GST paid on the sales and purchases can not be availed by them. No special incentives are available to these non – GST industries.
It is suggested that such units can be given incentives based on the local employment, refund of PF , increase in interest and power subsidy to reduce their operational cost. Also it stressed upon the incentives to be given to the Service Sector which is making a substantial contribution to the economy and GDP. Prior to GST, Service Tax was GOI revenue and the state did not get any direct share.
Under the GST regime, the State Govt. will have a direct share. Industry related services should be incentivized for this growth. The initiative will promote the growth of the service oriented IT companies, Testing and Design laboratory, Specialized service industries , etc.
Also regarding solar energy it emphasized that Maharashtra is facing acute shortage of power generation and also due to high electricity rates industries are witnessing burden and facing competition from other states. Government is time and again promoting the use renewable energy and appealing to entrepreneurs to use renewable energy in the form of Solar Energy which is need of the hour.
In this context, it mentioned that under PSI-2019 Solar power equipments installed in the unit are excluded in the definition of eligible assets under Fixed Capital Investment (FCI) to be considered for incentives. With government promoting ,the solar power it is imperative that similar incentives should be given for installation of solar power in factory for captive use.It also pleaded for Special Incentives for Export Oriented Units.
As every state of india is promoting exports oriented units it suggested that to promote such units and increased exports of the state to the greater extent, incentives can be provided by way of capital subsidy to the extent of 2% of the export sales. this will boost up the export of the state of Maharashtra.Industry Minister discussed the issues & assure to address & resolve them.Shri Vaibhav Agrawal,Vice Chairman, COSIA,Shri Nitin Alshi,Treasurer,COSIA & Shri JasbirSingh Arora were present in the delegation.