CICU members meet minister, apprise him of their concerns

Ludhiana: With issues ranging from high freight costs, labour laws, members of the Chamber of Industrial and Commercial Undertakings (CICU) held a meeting between city based businessmen and union minister of state of commerce and industry, Som Prakash on Sunday. President of CICU Upkar Singh Ahuja presided over the program and apprised the minister about the problems being faced by the industrialists.
Several prominent businessmen of the city including, Sachit Jain from Vardhman, Ashok Juneja, Rajnish Ahuja , Abhishek Munjal, Onkar Singh Pahwa, Mridula Jain, Pankaj Sharma too were present on the occasion and expressed their views. Meanwhile the major issues concerning the industry were discussed widely in the interaction. CICU president Upkar Singh Ahuja said, “Recent fluctuation in steel prices to the tune of Rs. 7,000 per ton has affected entire engineering industry especially the units falling under the category of micro, small and medium enterprises sector. He urged the minister that government should interfere urgently and not allow the private players to monopolise the trade. They pointed out since Punjab was a land locked state industries have to incur very high freight cost to send products to shipping ports which further added on the cost of production and made manufacturing difficult. Sachit Jain from Vardhman Group, emphasised on the need to improve labour laws and change working hours as applicable in other countries. Jain also said that the existing labour laws in India are very old and not in tune with the international standards. The minister assured that he would look into the issues raised by the businessmen.