Published On : Thu, Apr 4th, 2019

CAIT releases national charter ahead of general elections

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With a view to play a decisive role in the Lok Sabha elections, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Thursday released a national charter of traders at Puducherry at its two-day national conference of trade leaders.

The conference was attended by over 200 trade leaders from 26 states.

While making a declaration of converting seven crore traders and their 30 crore employees across the country in a vote bank, the CAIT said trading community will vote collectively to the party which accepts and promises to implement the charter. Gross neglect of traders since decades has compelled us to convert traders into a vote bank and after analysing the response of the parties, CAIT will urge the traders across the country to vote accordingly.

CAIT National President B C Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that national charter of traders, demands a robust E-commerce policy to clean current highly vitiated E-commerce business in India and provide level playing field and fair competition.

A national trade policy for retail trade and creation of a separate ministry of internal trade, formation of a retail regulatory authority and a regulatory authority for E-commerce on the lines of SEBI, simplification and rationalisation of GST, scheme for upgradation and modernisation of existing retail trade, incentives for adoption and acceptance of digital payments by traders including waiver of bank charges on digital transactions, introduction of a balanced model tenancy act, overall review of Food Safety & Standards Act, amendments in procedure of Mudra Yojana by including non-banking finance companies and micro finance Institutions as loan disbursement agencies instead of banks, formation of a national board of internal trade comprising representatives of trade are some of the other demands listed in the charter .

The charter further demands accidental insurance of Rs 10 lakh for traders registered under GST as implemented in UP, subsidy to traders for adoption of Computer system in existing format of business, lower interest rate 2% less than prevailing interest rate by banks & financial institutions, pension to traders after attaining age of 65 years are other issues included in the Charter.

The charter further demanded redefining of credit norms for small businesses, better infrastructure facilities in commercial markets, augmentation of safety and security of traders and commercial markets with the help of trade associations, food grains and essential items should be taken out from commodity exchanges and abolition of toll tax payers in Jammu, mandi tax & professional tax across country to make GST as one tax regime, only one license for conducting any business in the country and representation to traders from gram panchayat to state legislative council.

The conference also resolved to continue its national campaign “One Nation-One Trader-Ten Votes” across the country more vigorously to aware the traders about importance of their vote with a slogan “Vote You Must-Party who trust traders”.

Interestingly, the CAIT a couple of days back launched a campaign encouraging every individual to vote terming it as a non-political drive.

BY : Awadhoot Pathak