By IANS
Lucknow : The New Year ushered in the value-added tax (VAT) regime in Uttar Pradesh amid protests by traders, while the government ordered sharp cuts in VAT on as many as 91 items.
“Most of these items are of household use and include articles used by women, farmers and the common people,” Chief Minister Mayawati told a press conference.
Uttar Pradesh is the last Indian state to adopt VAT, introduced across the country about two years ago.
“The VAT regime will ensure an effective check on theft of tax, bring in transparency and give overall boost to trade and industry,” the chief minister said.
Terming the cuts as a “New Year’s gift” to the state, she said: “By switching over to the new tax regime, we hope to bring Uttar Pradesh in the national economic mainstream.”
Blaming the opposition for the ongoing protests on VAT, she said: “(The) opposition parties were misguiding traders who must not fall into the trap.”
She also offered some sops to traders in an obvious bid to pacify them.
“With a view to providing them a major respite from undue harassment, we have decided to set up a settlement commission for quick disposal of all pending cases related to tax dues and penalty of more than Rs.100,000,” she said.
“I also wish to assure traders that they will not be persecuted in any manner.”
Meanwhile, anti-VAT protests were reported from large parts of the state.
Rival organisations of traders joined hands for Tuesday’s token protest that led to closure of shops and commercial establishments in many places.
While response to the strike call was partial in state capital Lucknow, traders ensured near total closure of all markets in Kanpur, the state’s industrial and commercial hub.
At Bara Chauraha in Kanpur, traders went to the extent of staging a demonstration through begging on the streets.
“VAT is going to reduce us to a stage where we would probably have no option but to beg on the streets,” said Shyam Behari Misra, Kanpur’s most prominent leader of the traders’ organisation.
Misra, who is the national president of All India Udyog Vyapar Mandal, told reporters in Kanpur: “The switch over to VAT regime is half-hearted and half-baked.”
“I can assure you the government is not in readiness to run the VAT regime. Officials manning the department are ignorant about the new tax. So I fail to understand how they are going to implement it,” he added.