Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 17: The Federation of Industries Jammu (FoIJ) has claimed that implementation of GST will have adverse impact on the local industries in the Jammu and Kashmir State.
A meeting of the FoIJ was held under the chairmanship of Rajesh Jain wherein, the issues relating to implementation of GST with effect from July Ist, 2017 were discussed. “It appears that the Govt has least priority in safeguarding the interest of local industry which is going to be adversely affected unless and until the existing incentives are incorporated in the new regime,” they said.
“At present there is no clarity on the fate of the existing incentives in the GST regime both from the State and Central Govts. During earlier interactions with the Finance Minister, Haseeb Drabu, the latest being on June 12, 2017 at Srinagar, it was assured that the existing incentives such as remission of VAT, Excise refund and other prevailing fiscal incentives will be incorporated in the new GST regime. But till date neither there is any notification, nor has there been any specific discussion on the matter how industry will be accommodated in the GST regime,” they maintained.
In the absence of incentives, no new investments will come from within and outside the State and even the existing industry faces closure with consequent large scale retrenchment. Further, there will be flight of capital to other States and migration of educated / uneducated youth from Jammu to other States.
Presently, the Industry gives employment to lakhs of youth and is the primary job creator considering that no new Govt jobs are being created by the State.
The meeting was attended by co-chairman of FoI-Jammu, namely, Lalit Mahajan, Jatinder Aul and Romesh Badyal; Ajay Langer (secretary general), SB Abrol (convener) and Vijay Sharma, Sanjeev Vig, Suresh Mahajan, Varun Singla, Vivek Singhal, Viraaj Malhotra and Sanjay Chopra (Executive members of FoI-Jammu).
The industries representatives urge the Industries and Commerce Minister Chander Parkash to forcefully take up these issues with the Finance Minister as well as the Central Govt and have the issue resolved without further delay.
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