Asia’s largest scrapyard with Rupees 6000 Crore turn over sweat under GST heat

JIBRAN NAZIR (PHOTO/VIDEO SAURABH SHRIVASTAVA) TENNEWS

The scrap dealers in Asia’s largest scrap yard at Delhi’s Mayapuri industrial estate are unusually idle and grim. Except for a few big dealers in the area who have secured their jobs in the auctions of government vehicles, all others have dismal looks on their faces. This thriving industry, once having reached an annual turn-over of more than 6000 crore Rupees, reportedly, is now facing chaos and uncertainty. The workers worry regarding their work and its profitability; courtesy, new tax reforms in the country – the GST.

We were yet to recover from a heavy blow of demonetisation, says Sawinder Singh, a scrap dealer, “and now GST has struck our business. We are idle for almost a month.”

Vehicle shells, engines, steering wheels, tyres and metal innards ripped out of vehicles lie stacked on either side of the alleyways of the west Delhi market. In a corner, shop owners and scrap dealers stand in a circle, discussing effects of the GST.

“The market is closed, we are earning no money. No one is coming with their cars or machines because all our transactions are in cash,” says Sanjog Singh, a scrap dealer.

The number of vehicles coming in to get “cut”, dealers say, had gone up by roughly 25-30 per cent over the last year.

“Earlier, the scrap business was divided into two tax slabs, 5% and 18.5% with 1% additional levy. But now we have to pay flat 28%, which is telling upon the business, we are straight away losing 10% of our traffic,” Sangjoy says.

At the end of the day, a lot of it is burnt. The consequences remain the same; it is almost impossible to breathe in the place, which smell of rotting iron, burning metals. With no mechanism in place to detect radioactive material at the initial stage, the place which makes for many a grungy picture has no smiling reality.