Pune's Federation of Trade Association has put forth its demand to start the 'Ladke Vyapari' scheme on the lines of Ladka Bhau and Ladki Bahin scheme introduced by the state government. President of the association, Fatechand Ranka, along with others from the association like Mahendra Pitaliya, Suryakant Pathak, Nitin Kakade, Arvind Kothari, Milind Shalgar and Pramod Shah came together to highlight issues faced by traders in the city. The sentiment behind the demand for Ladke Vyapari Yojana as stated by the federation is, that traders play a most important and vital role in collecting a variety of taxes well in time and deposit them with the government. "We are the collectors or mediators between the customer and the government without any benefit or concession. On the contrary, while collecting taxes, we are burdened with heavy expenses while submitting returns through an advocate or chartered accountant. Traders are required to pay heavy charges or fees to chartered accountants and also to invest heavily in downloading the program. However,the government is not utilising these taxes for development work, but it seems the collected taxes are used for free schemes announced by the government. We, therefore, humbly request that the state government should declare and start 'LADKE VYAPARI' yojana for traders in the form of pension at the rate of 10 per cent of the tax collected." Speaking on the occasion, Fatechand Ranka said, "We suggest that for all traders who have paid, collected and deposited GST and other taxes, 10 per cent of the taxes deposited be given to these traders as pension for old age. The government should consider starting the Ladke Vyapari scheme for traders in the form of pension at the rate of 10% of the tax collected." "Secondly, PMC has increased charges for the name boards and hoardings from Rs 111 to Rs 580 per square foot, which is excessive and unecessary. So, we suggest that the renewal of hoardings/ display boards/ names boards be done at Rs 222 per square feet," said Mahendra Pitaliya. Suryakant Pathak highlighted the GST related issue. He said, "Many times traders neither file GST returns nor do they pay GST collected from earlier traders. This creates a problem for the trader who has already paid the GST as he does not get the set off. The problem also arises when a trader files GST returns after the given deadline. Despite repetitive requests no action has been taken against such traders so far. So, we suggest the government take the step to abolish troublesome provisions in GST."
