Giving in to the demands of the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association (FRTWA), state chief secretary Jayantkumar Banthia has invited two representatives of the retailers group to participate in a meeting to discuss the implementation of Local Body Tax (LBT) in Mumbai on June 6.
Referring to the letter that the FRTWA had received from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Tuesday, wherein representatives had been invited for the June 6 meeting on the instruction of Mr Banthia, FRTWA president Viren Shah said that the retailers had been ignored and therefore, the association had written to chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, and chief secretary demanding their inclusion in the meeting on the issue.
“We will stick to our stand of opposing LBT or Octroi and including a surcharge with VAT. Retailers are not opposed to paying an additional tax, we are only opposed to it
giving rise to ‘inspector raj’,” said Mr Shah. The meeting is to be held at the chief secretary’s office in Mantralaya and will dwell on not only the implementation aspect, but also deal with the issue of double taxation, which the retailers felt would only add to the burden of the buyers.
Since the issue of LBT was raised, there has been a visible rift among various traders’ factions depending on the association they are affiliated to.