New Delhi, May 7 (KNN) As the domestic trade suffered a loss of 7 lakh crores in 40 days due to restrictions in various states, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has urged the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to grant a relief to traders.   

In this regard, the traders' body has written to the Finance Minister and appreciated various aggressive steps taken by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Government to help the states in their fight against COVID pandemic.

However, CAIT also sought some relief from the financial load and compliance of the rules, for the time being.

''All statutory dates under GST and Income Tax by which either tax is to be paid or return has to be filed, may be extended till 31st August, 2021. The Challan should be treated as a document of payment and not Form GSTR -3B under GST, this will encourage the tax payer to pay tax early and the government too will get the taxes in time. The changes brought in procedures through Notification No. 01/2021 – Central Tax New Delhi, the 1 st January, 2021 & Notification No. 94 /2020 – Central Tax New Delhi, the 22nd December, 2020 should be deferred till the same are not discussed with all stakeholders and State GST Commissioners,'' CAIT National President B C Bhartia & Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal demanded in the letter to FM.

Both trade leaders further urged that the Banks should be directed not to charge any interest on the loans for the period of lockdown and a moratorium of six months may be allowed to pay the EMIs of the loans or squaring up the loans and advances.

It further said that to facilitate the small traders to keep business activities running, a " Corona Loan" may be given to traders at a reasonable rate of interest with limited KYC to enable particularly the small traders having a turnover of up to Rs 10 crore.

''The traders should be brought under the ambit of MSME. Earlier, the traders were part of the MSME but by an office order in 2017, they were excluded from the purview of MSME. The relief announced by RBI Governor is applicable to MSME only. The traders cannot take advantage of the scheme as they have been eliminated under MSME. Therefore, in pursuance of the intent of the Government to provide relief to small sectors, the traders should be included under the purview of MSME,'' it urged.

The traders body further suggested that the salaries of the lockdown period of the employees who are registered under ESI may be given from the ESI welfare fund which is having an accumulated balance of about Rs 60 thousand crores.

The CAIT also recalled that in any package which was announced last year, the traders were not given a single penny.

''It is requested that a suitable package may be announced for the traders which will enable them to continue their business activities in a smooth manner,'' it said.

Both Bhartia & Khandelwal have also urged the Finance Minister to also assist in extension of date of implementation of hallmarking from 1st June, 2021 to a further suitable period.