Kekri: Strike demanding removal of Mandi tax and additional charges on pulses, business worth crores of rupees affected

Mill owners such as Manish Kataria of Mahavir Mills located in Kekri, Premchand Bakliwal of Hem Industries, Harinarayan Mantri of KDM Industries, Dinesh Kabra of Rajshree Industries, Paras Kumar Jain of Barfi Devi Industries, Parthik Jain of RK Industries, Vinod Jain of Aravali Industries and others said that 1.60 per cent market fee and 0.50 per cent cess called Krishak Kalyan is being collected on pulses in Rajasthan.

Whereas in other states, Mandi tax is 0.60% in Gujarat and 1% in Haryana and no Mandi tax is levied in Punjab, Delhi and Bihar. He said that to promote the pulse industry in Rajasthan, the state government should take imported pulses out of the purview of Mandi tax and should also abolish the farmer welfare fee. 

He said that Madhya Pradesh may be ahead of Rajasthan in pulses production. But Rajasthan is number one in the country in pulses production. More than three thousand pulses have been found in Rajasthan. The businessmen of the state have to buy goods from neighboring states by paying market fee to meet the demand of raw material.

Once again, as soon as we come here, we are hit by the Mandi tax along with Krishi Kalyan tax. Taking advantage of this, people from other states are earning profits by selling pulses in Rajasthan and the pulse industry of the state is being forced to migrate to other states. The pulse based industry of the state is in crisis due to the double blow of tax. Most of the traders are considering shifting their industry to the neighbouring states where the tax is less.

Shivprakash Toshnivan, president of Krishi Mandi Vyapar Association, said that the tax being levied on pulses by the state government should be removed with immediate effect and tax exemption should be given like other states, so that dal mill operators can get encouragement and trade can flourish in Rajasthan state which has unlimited possibilities for pulses.

During this time, Pramod Jain, Naman Jain, Vinay Jain, Deepak Dhupia, Paras Jain, Mukesh Kumar Sharma, Vaibhav Dhumia, Aman Jain, Manish Mantri, Shambhu Prakash Pareek, Shantilal Jain, Gautam Singh Jain, Bhanwar Lal Fatehpuria, Omprakash Fatehpuria, Shailendra Kumar Bordia, Sushil Chaudhary, Amit Dhupia, Vijay Toshniwal, Suresh Kumar Jain and many other market traders were also present.