CM asked to solve problems of industry, commerce in D.K.

By Our Staff Correspondent

MANGALORE, SEPT. 28. The Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), in a memorandum, has urged the Chief Minister, Mr. S.M.Krishna, to rectify the problems in the development of industry and commerce in the region.

Referring to the proposed introduction of the value added tax (VAT) system on commercial transactions from April 1, 2002, the President of the chamber, Mr. Muralidhar Ramani, said that the Union and State governments had not created awareness about the system among the traders and people, and this would give rise to trade and accounting-related problems. The State Government should publish a paper on the provisions and principles involved in the system. It should convene a meeting of the chambers of commerce in the State for the purpose, he added.

Demanding that turnover tax (TOT) on all items be abolished, the memorandum said that the TOT amounted to double taxation as it was levied from businessmen apart from the income tax collected from them. The existing provisions did not allow the collection of TOT from customers, it added.

The problems faced by local busineses due to multi-point taxation of dealers of notified products were represented. The discrepancies in the APMC Act needed to be sorted out. The repeated requests to the Government to consult experts to solve the problems of traders had not yielded results. A free economic zone, as per the provisions in the Exim Policy of the Union Government, was essential for the industry. Industries in the proposed zone would benefit from exemptions such as 100 per cent cut in income tax. Mangalore was the only major port in the State, and the State Government would hence increase capital flow into the local market, the memorandum said.

The KCCI had also pressed for the speedy completion of the work on the Panemangalur Bridge. The existing bridge, built over a century ago, had become inadequate for the increased traffic between Mangalore and Bangalore. Though pillars had been erected for the construction of the bridge, the work had been progressing at a slow pace.

The chamber had made several other demands, including the construction of a four-lane highway linking Baindoor in Udupi District with Thokkoto on the Dakshina Kannada-Kerala border.

The airport expansion project needed to be implemented in earnest for the development of the district, it said.

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Section  : Southern States
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