VAT DEPARTMENT IS BEING USED BY KEJRIWAL GOVERNMENT TO BROWBEAT TRADERS TO PAY ITS TRADE WING

Delhi BJP President Shri Satish Upadhyay has said that Delhi Government has made the VAT Department as its tool to raise electoral funds for the ruling party.

Shri Upadhyay today addressed the traders along with prominent trader’s leader Shri Praveen Khandelwal who said that the traders of Delhi have called a meeting tomorrow to decide an agitation against the draconian DS-1 Form & Item Code provisions announced by the Kejriwal Government.  

Shri Upadhyay and Shri Khandelwal said that the foundation of the revenue of Delhi Government is the revenue collected through the VAT Department. The traders of Delhi have always co-operated honestly in the Development of Delhi but the Kejriwal Government by introducing scheme BILL LAO INAAM PAO has put the traders of Delhi in the dock as if the traders of Delhi are evading tax by not giving bills. Similarly the promise of paying the traders a part of the increased tax collection through the traders’ wing is phantasm because there is no legal recognition for such scheme. Since the Kejriwal Government came to power the traders of Delhi are not getting refunds from the VAT Department.

Shri Upadhyay has said that since CM Arvind Kejriwal Government came to power in Delhi it has used VAT Department to first harass the traders through announcement of unacceptable taxation provisions and then taken the announcements back after collecting major donations for the ruling party from the concerned Traders’ Associations.

Shri Upadhyay has said that soon after coming to power Kejriwal Government had announced that Inspectors of VAT Department will not be allowed to go in the markets but today almost every Traders’ Associations in Delhi more so in the wholesale trade areas are fighting against the terror of Inspector Raj which ends only after obliging the ruling parties traders wing.

Delhi BJP President has said soon after coming to power Kejriwal Government brought a Form called DS-2 which was withdrawn after traders protest on one hand and their associations fulfilling the ruling party trade wing demands on the other.

Similarly in the Budget for 2016-17 it was announced that VAT will be applicable on raw cloth to which the traders associations and the Bharatiya Janata Party strongly protested against it. The same was also withdrawn but only after the concerned traders associations obliging the trade wing of the ruling party and in it we saw a peculiar filmy situation as seen in an old film AAJ KA MLA. Apart from taking funds from the associations the ruling party leaders forced the traders to put up hoardings and posters felicitating the Chief Minister on the withdrawal, as if the Government had given a relief from an existing tax.  Shri Upadhyay said that AAP Government itself created a pressure situation on the cloth traders by imposing a new tax provision and forced them to pay & felicitate their trade wing in a most filmy style.

Shri Upadhyay & Shri Praveen Khandelwal said that now the draconian DS-1 Form and the Item Code have been introduced by the Delhi Government and both will ultimately destroy the trade in Delhi. While the provisions of Form DS-1 will destroy the interstate trade of Delhi the Item Code provisions will badly affect the small traders like the general merchants in the local colony markets.

Under the Item Code provisions even the small traders running grocery shops will have to adopt computerization billing giving item code of every product sold by them which is not economically possible for small traders. It appears Kejriwal Government is trying to support major Malls & organized Retail Chains of big companies.