State govt owes Rs 200 crore to industrialists

Jalandhar, December 11

The Punjab Government owes around Rs 200 crore VAT refund to Jalandhar traders, manufacturers, exporters and industrialists.

Despite several requests, protests and mails to the Punjab and Union Government representatives by several organisations, the complications in the C-form are not being removed. Sources say perhaps due to this reason, the industry has been moving out of Punjab to neighbouring states.

There are 110 associations in Jalandhar that have been making efforts to minimise the VAT refund complications for the past several years, but to no avail. In the wake of the formation of the new government, the association representatives have mailed to Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, but have got no response so far.

Raj Kumar, owner of Akash Engineering, and a representative of the Jalandhar Traders and Manufactures Association, there are around 10,000 traders, manufacturers, industrialists and exporters in Jalandhar, who are due to get around Rs 200 crore VAT refund.

He said they had met Kamal Sharma, president, BJP, Punjab, who had assured them a few months ago that he would constitute a six-member committee that would conducts meetings with them to hear their issues. So far, no meeting has been held with us. He said there was around Rs 1,000 crore VAT refund the traders in the state were due to get.

Raj Kumar said in 2005, when the Congress government introduced VAT in the state, the refund procedure was not as complicated as it has been in the SAD-BJP government. “What the Punjab government is doing is just making excuses. During the last parliamentary election, numerous promises were made to us to solve the issue. Yet nothing has been done,” he added. — TNS