Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 23: One of the leading city businessmen and sitting secretary general of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Manish Gupta, who is contesting again for the same post, has said that protecting interests of the Jammu traders and industrialists will be his top priority.
Talking to the Excelsior, Mr Manish, an experienced Executive Committee member of the CCI, said that if he is voted to power again in the Chamber elections to be held on April 28, he along with his team mates would strive hard to achieve the goal and give new vision and direction to this pioneer body traders and industrialists. He said his Chamber team headed by Y V Sharma has gone for conduct of elections in time as per constitution of this body and this act would certainly give a great relief to many members of CCI.
Recalling some achievements of the present body, Mr Manish said that several meetings were held with the IT, Sales/ Commercial Tax authorities, the Finance Minister A R Rather and Industries and Commerce Minister S S Slathia to convince them and project the issues of traders and industrialists forcefully. The team also succeeded in minimizing the losses to business community by not resorting to strikes/ bandhs as it was considered as the last resort. The issue of VAT returns, harassment of traders at Lakhanpur was taken up vigorously with the concerned minister and some relief was accorded the business community.
The Chamber has strongly pleaded for opening of more cross LOC routes for trade and the Jammu Sialkote road and also increasing tradable items at Chakkan-da-Bagh LOC point besides providing banking and telephone facilities to traders on both sides. The Jammu Chamber has stressed for the enhancing Shri Amarnath Yatra periodicity to two months so that traders could be benefited and more devotees could visit the holy shrine. This team has also taken up issue of setting up a Businessmen Club and for this a demand of providing 25 kanals of land has been projected before the DyCM.
Referring to stoppage of industrial incentives in J&K, Manish said he would continue his struggle to get the incentives revived. He said already this issue has been taken up with the Chief Minister and a communication was also forwarded to the Union Finance Minister and the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. The Chamber has also pleaded for review of hiked power tariff and put forth a demand of uninterrupted supply of power on concessional rates to the industry, he added.
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