Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 18: A joint delegation of Federation of Industries Jammu (FoIJ) and Federation Chamber of Industries Kashmir (FCIK), called on the Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Ahmed Drabu and discussed the issue of incentives to local industry under the GST regime.
During the deliberations, the members of the delegation, led by Rajesh Jain (Chairman, FoIJ), Ashraf Mir (Chairman FCIK) and accompanied by Lalit Mahajan, Co-chairman, Ajay Langer, secretary general and Vijay Sharma, impressed upon the Finance Minister for early issue of notifications pertaining to continuation of incentives under the GST regime.
The earlier incentives, pertaining to VAT remission, Cashless VAT refund through SICOP on purchase of raw material and CST exemption on sales outside the State for finished products are no longer applicable and fresh notifications incorporating these incentives in the GST regime need to be issued.
Further, it was requested that the State Government should immediately and aggressively take up with the Centre for continuation of Central package of incentives and be extended to all existing and incoming industries.
The delegation of representatives of industry was also accompanied by the BJP State president Sat Sharma alongwith Rajesh Gupta, Gagan Bhagat, Rajeev Sharma, D K Manyal and Dinanath Bhagat (all MLAs). They also impressed upon the Finance Minister to fulfill the promises already given by the Government to continue all the State incentives and also to pursue with the Centre for continuation of the Central package of incentives.
It was also emphasized that any dilution or abrupt discontinuation of the State / Central incentives will have a drastic financial impact on the existing and incoming industry. The existing industries will be compelled to close down and no new investment will flow into the State, they explained and added that this will eventually cause large scale retrenchment of labour and no new jobs will be created and investment of thousand of crores will be in jeopardy.
The Finance Minister assured that the Government has every intention to support the local industry and all incentives that were existing prior to GST, will be continued under GST regime and suitable notifications will be issued very shortly alongwith the issuance of Central notifications.
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