The Tamil Nadu traders’ conference held here on Wednesday urged the Centre to immediately stop online trading which has become a `gambling’ and caused spiralling of prices of all commodities. The Centre has allowed online trading as it gets huge amount of service tax at various stages, but it has affected the common people who are paying high price for all the commodities.
This was one of the resolutions adopted at the 27thTraders Day State conference organised by the Tamil Nadu Vanigar Sangankalin Peravai presided over by T.Vellaiyan, its president. The conference was attended by thousands of traders from all over the State.
The conference urged the Tamil Nadu Government to take steps to print in bold letters all the details of the packaged commodities in Tamil for people to read them easily. All the commodities should be packed in 50 grams, 100 grams, 200 grams, 250 grams, 500 grams and one kg.
In another resolution, the conference requested the government to exempt tax for business turnover of Rs.50 lakh for the small traders against the present level of Rs.10 lakh as per the VAT Act. It wanted the government to revamp the Traders Welfare Board to enable even small traders to become members in the board.
The conference requested the government to safeguard the interests of roadside merchants and said roads could be widened without affecting the traders. Criticising the Centre’s move to permit foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail business, it said the plan would affect more than six lakh traders in Tamil Nadu alone.
It said power cut had affected industries and business establishments and several industries were on the verge of closure.
Asking traders to protect the interests of the consumers, the resolution said the reported sale of expired medicines and fake medicines had damaged the reputation of several traders and merchants.
The conference passed several other resolutions including urging the government to give farmers Rs.2,500 per tonne of sugarcane, grant of incentive to aged handloom weavers, supply uninterrupted power for small scale units and introduce more trains on the newly laid broad gauge sections in several parts of the State.
