Indore: Over 1200 industrialists will stage protest against dual taxes here on Friday. District Industries Centre (DIC) recovers lease rent and maintenance charges from industrial units. Indore Municipal Corporation charges property tax, transfer fee, water tax, rent control, cleanliness tax from them.
Association of Industries of Madhya Pradesh and Laghu Udyog Bharti have opposed the move and have joined hands to protest against the anti-industry measures. Alok Dave, president of AIMP and Mahesh Gupta, President of Laghu Udhyog Bharti, Malwa Prant, questioned the logic of two taxes by two different government agencies.
“This is unjustified, the state government had promised to abolish the dual taxation system. But this is just the reverse,” they told newspersons on Thursday. The industrialists are of the view that double levy will affect their businesses adversely in an already bleak economic scenario.
Over 1200 industrialist will gather at Regal Square and place memorandum before statue of Mahatma Gandhi on Friday. They will later visit divisional commissioner’s office to hand him over the memorandum addressed to chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Similar protests will be held in all the districts.
According to Gupta, DIC has increased maintenance charges up to 400 percent from back date, that is, from April 1, 2015. Vinit Jain, city president of Laghu Udyog Bharti, said tax regime, which was in force before 1 July 2009, should be implemented as no charges were recovered from MSME units then.
The state has more than 6000 MSME units out of which over 3500 are located in Indore and Pithampur. Most units are reeling under financial constraints after demonetisation and GST enforcement.