Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The cloth tradersí association will keep their shops closed in state on Thursday to protest against hike in GST on garments from January 1. The agitation has been launched under the umbrella of GST Sangharsh Sameeti, said the president of wholesale cloth tradersí association Kanhaiyalal Israni.
The associations have been protesting earlier too by blacking out their shops every evening for 20 minutes and beating utensils, blowing conch shells and putting a black cloth on display, but to no avail.
The GST Council had called a meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday to reconsider the decision of increasing the GST rates on clothes from 5% to 12% after they faced protest from all corners, said Israni.
At the meeting, the council decided to stick to its decision after which the cloth traders from across the country met virtually to discuss the next course of action.
The GST Sangharsh Sameeti, which is a state-level body, has decided to keep the textile market shut on Thursday in protest. The strike may be prolonged indefinitely if the need arises.
ìThe government has been increasing taxes on clothes, which will affect the industry adversely. We are leaders in employment generation and export earnings. Increasing GST would force traders to adopt illegal means to keep their business going,' said former head of association, Vasudev Wadhwani.
ìThere was no tax on clothes before independence. The government started it with imposing 1% tax, then increased it to 5%. Then too, we protested. Now, increasing it to 12% cannot be tolerated,î he added.
