PUNE: Last week, after a hectic day of campaigning, former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan arrived at a Congress leader’s home late evening in Pune.

Gathered at the spot were nearly 50 people comprising developers, businessmen and traders. Each of the men narrated the woes from their businesses, with the common refrain being the ‘cumbersome’ goods and services tax (GST) and how they were spending more time, money and effort handling GST issues that have been affecting their businesses. Chavan heard them out and promised how the Congress government, if it comes to power, would come with an better ‘GST 2.0’ that would be much simpler for everyone. At the end of the meeting, a local Congress leader who organised the meet promised Chavan that the businessmen would help the Congress.

Traders and businessmen from across the state that ET spoke to claim that the ‘simplification of GST’ that has been promised by the Congress has found resonance among the trader community. In fact, frustration and anger against GST is more than demonetisation. “Demonetisation gave us a severe hit, however, this is more damaging; we have had to hire more people just for our accounts. The whole process has been made in such a way that you can’t fill the details in one go,” said a trader from Pune on condition of anonymity.

Nearly 300 kilometres away from Pune in western Maharashtra traders, in Marathwada’s Osmanabad, a talk on GST brings out the same anger and frustration among traders. “It is definitely cumbersome, every other day there is some new notification (about GST). I think there might have been at least 200 to 250 notifications as of now, how do you keep track of all this and run a business. Businesses have taken a huge hit due to this,” said Sanjay Mantri, president of District Chamber of Trade and Commerce, Osmanabad. 

 

Published On : 15-04-2019

Source : The Economic Times