Saturday, February 22, 2014: At the noted convention meeting of the traders held in Mumbai, the Federation of Associations of Maharashtra (FAM), which represents many traders’ organisations, has reportedly said that the traders will only pay Rs 10 per month to the civic bodies on account of the local body tax (LBT) or the Octroi (which ever applicable).
The traders who are opposing the local body tax (LBT) and Octroi, throughout Maharashtra decided to launch this boycott movement starting from 1 March. The city of Nashik saw traders observing a bandh on Friday. They demanded that the LBT be completely scrapped off.
Nearly a thousand traders from Nashik joined along with traders from other cities, totalling up to 40,000, at the finance capital’s Azad Maidan for the convention. The convention released a deadline of seven days to the state government, to scrap LBT. The bandh supporters included all grocery shops, wholesale and retail shops, while business like cloth merchants, did not participate in it.
Prafulla Sancheti, the working president of the Nashik Mahanagar Vuapari Mahasangh said, “We have decided to vote for the political party that assures us in writing that they will do away with the LBT. We have given an ultimatum of seven days to the government to take a decision. We have also decided to pay only Rs 10 of the total LBT imposed on us and thereafter we will pay 2 per cent interest on the remaining amount, as per the rule. From Saturday, we will start this exercise till LBT is scrapped,” said a TOI report. Rajan Dalwani, the chairman of the organisation asserted, “We will go on protesting against LBT in different ways till it is done away with,” in the same report.
