JASWANT SINGH GANDAM / RAMAN NEHRA
India Post News Service
PHAGWARA: Exporters have demanded equalization of road and rail freight for remote and border areas for growth of export and industrial sector in these areas and provide them level-playing field.
This issue was raised here Sunday in a memorandum submitted to Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Som Parkash by A.K. Kohli, senior vice-president of Punjab Chamber of Small Exporters.
He pleaded that freight charges by road and rail should be at par with sea port areas and remote and border areas.
He further said that concessional rail and road freight was required for exportable goods produced in border states or states far away from sea ports that paid very high cost of transportation of export goods containers sent from their nearby dry ports to sea ports of country.
“When we pay same GST and I-T, why should we be made to cough out more freight than states which either have ports or are near them?” argued Kohli.
“Freight parity or freight concession for remote and border areas was sine qua non for sustaining exports in these areas,” he said.
Kohli said that other problems being faced by exporters included credit crunch and high interest rates, unstable financial conditions since demonetisation, ongoing slowdown in demand in Indian market, rising input cost and slowdown in international market, delay in GST refund, harassment from GST/Custom etc.
Kohli also demanded simplified labour laws with less paper work and concessional rate of income tax on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) units.
Kohli urged Parkash to take up with the Central government exporters’ issues for bringing more growth to India’s 6.5 crore units-strong MSME sector that gave employment to about 90 per cent work force, manufactured around 6,000 products with 40 per cent share in manufacturing and 45 per cent in exports.
“If the remedial measures are initiated by the government of India, Indian exports and industrial sector will register growth and increase even though there was global recession,” added Kohli.
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