Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal general secretary Sunil Mehra condemns raids on commercial establishments

Ludhiana, October 14, 2018: A meeting of Ludhiana District Unit of Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal held under the leadership of district chairman Pawan Lehar.
Addressing the gathering, the Mandal's state general secretary Sunil Mehra said it was regretted to note that the government departments such as income tax, GST and sales tax were conducting raids at the commercial establishments that were already facing recession.
Mehra recalled the days of 1996 and stated that during that era the bureaucracy had harassed the traders following which a great harm was rendered to trade and industry. He apprehended that the trade would suffer badly in the present era of the government did not change its attitude towards it.
Further, Mehra regretted that the state government was seen sleeping over the fact that traders were being harassed a lot on one or another ground across Punjab. He apprehended that the present situation, if not controlled, would lead to spreading unemployment besides destroying trade in Punjab. He said the situation was so worse that traders from outside had stopped entering into the state.
Mehra said about 22,000 industries had shifted to other states before the year 2017 due to faulty policies of the state government and now the situation was getting disturbed due to "terror" being created among the traders. As a result, traders were suffering a lot, he said.
The traders' leader further said that Capt Amarinder Singh government had come to power after promising to supply power at Rs.5 per unit but after coming to power this government had increased power tariff 18 times putting acute additional financial burden on people of Punjab. He also condemned the state government for increasing corruption and deteriorating law and order situation in Punjab.
Harsh Thapar, Ashvani Mahajan, Ravi Dhawan, Rohit Kapoor, Arvinder Singh Makkar, Jaswant Singh Birdi, Ramesh Goel, Kasturi Lal, Harkesh Mittal, Jai Ram Mishra, Rakesh Verma, Munish Ahuja, Kuldip Singh, Ravi Sud, Gulshan Tandon, Umesh Soni, Mayank Gupta and Charanjit Bhargav were among those present.