EXCISE DUTY: Knitwear Club delegation meets Manish Tewari

Ludhiana, January 7, 2013: A delegation of Knitwear Club, Ludhiana under the leadership of Darshan Dawar, President with the support of Pawan Dewan, President, District Congress Committee (Urban), Ludhiana, met Manish Tewari, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting (Independent Charge) at his residence here to discuss the problems of Excise Duty which was imposed in 2011 at 12.36%. the delegates apprised Tewari that the imposition of excise duty has resulted in increase in cost of branded garments and made ups textiles.

They opined, it will make product non-competitive in the market in comparison to manufacturers producing goods availing SSI exemption benefit under Notification No. 8/2003-CE dated March 1, 2003 as amended in respect of clearances of branded goods up to Rs. 1.50 crore. There is no cenvat credit available on the inputs as the yarn dealers / manufacturers opt for the optional status and are not covered under central excise.

The delegation requested Tewari to put up this issue with the Union Finance Minister to remove the excise duty or make it optional as earlier.

A memorandum in this regard was also presented to Tewari.

The delegation also discussed about the problem of the stoppage of the Shatabadi Express.

They apprised the minister that Shatabadi Express trains are a series of fast trains to connect Metro cities with other cities important for tourism, pilgrimage or business. “So as we all know Ludhiana city being a hub of hosiery industry frequently approach Delhi for business motive so the industrialists usually take into service of Shatabadi to reach the destination faster and usually they stop at Sabzi Mandi railway station but in the schedule of Shatabadi there is no stoppage at Sabzi Mandi and the businessmen have to face the problems”, they said.

Tewari gave assurance to take these problems of the industry to the Central Government and will take effective steps to resolve them.

Among others, Narinder Miglani (General secretary), Jaswant Takkar (Senior Vice President), Vipan Vinayak (Vice President), P.L. Uppal ( Secretary PR), Mahesh Pruthi (Secretary PR), Sudershan Jain (President KAMAL), Ashwani Chawla, Amit Madaan, Ashok Makkar (Vice President), Lakshmi Gupta (Vice President), Kewal Budhiraja, Surinder Palta, Ramesh Duggal, Arun Aggarwal, Ajit Kapoor, Ravinder Vasan and  Subhash Dang.