While The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) called for a Bharat Bandh on Friday, several other organisations like The All India Transporters Welfare Association (AITWA), one of the foremost apex bodies of India’s Road Transport Sector, and The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), spearheading antifarm laws protests at Delhi borders, have extended support to the call for strike.
SKM has asked to peacefully participate in the protest called by transport and trade unions on February 26.
AITWA national president Mahendra Arya said. He said that diesel prices should be reduced and mechanisms need to be discussed and created with the Transport Industry for future regulation. According to CAIT, protests will be held nationwide in 1,500 places.
Apart from agitating against the rising fuel price, transporters have demanded the scrapping of e-way bill laws. It is the permit that they are required to carry while moving goods from one place to another.
Following a recent amendment in the GST laws, the validity of the bill has narrowed and increased to 200km per day from 100km earlier.
Penalties for a truck carrying a consignment with an expired e-way bill, or with an erroneous e-way bill amount to 200% of the tax value, or 100% of the invoice value under Section 129 of CGST act, 2017.
They said that vehicles may be tracked by the government using Fast Tag connectivity to E-invoice.
Besides, they argue that transporters should not be subject to any penalty for any time-based compliance target of transit.
“All state level-transport associations have confirmed their support to AITWA in this one-day non-operation of transport in protest of the fuel price hike and scrapping of new E-way bill laws introduced by government,” Bill.
Services expected to be affected:
Commercial markets across the country will remain closed as over 40,000 traders’ associations are participating in the Bharat Bandh.
Road transport services across the country may be affected as transport companies will remain non-operational between 6.00 am and 8.00 pm.
Booking, as well as the movement of bill-oriented goods, will be affected.
Many traders will not log-in to the GST portal to register their protest.
Some associations of chartered accountants and tax advocates have also backed the strike.
As per CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal, women entrepreneurs, small industries, hawkers, among others, will join the bandh.
