New Delhi, 17 Jan (KNN) The Confederation of All India Traders ( CAIT) has brought the attention of the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman towards an anomaly under GST which runs contrary to the vision of “Digital India “ and urge her to set the things right in consultation with GST Council.

CAIT National President B C Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that under GST Act a seller who wish to sell products in e-Commerce is invariably required to obtain GST No, said the press release. 

Any seller who do not have GST No is not allowed to sell products on any e-Commerce portal. This provision of the Act is barring lakhs of traders across the Country from using e-Commerce to sell their products, stated CAIT.

Both the senior leaders of the association said that on the one hand in pursuance of the vision of PM Modi, several ministries and state governments are eager to bring more and more sellers on e commerce platform but the provision of not allowing sellers without having GST number has become a major deterrent and roadblock to embrace digital commerce by lakhs of traders of the Country.

The Govt is much talking about empowerment of small retailers in the Country but since these small retailers are having their annual turnover less than INR 40 lakhs, they are exempted to take GST registration and hence this threshold relief given by the GST Council has become a nightmare for those small traders who wish to adopt digital commerce.

CAIT said that it will be pertinent to remove the condition of GST number while onboarding on any e-commerce portal.

For the purpose of authentication, the Aadhar number, Bank Account details or similar other measures may be designated as essential qualification for onboarding on e-commerce portal. 

They further said that not only the traders but large number of artisans, craftsmen, cottage and household industries, artists and various other similar sections are facing challenges in onboarding themselves on e commerce platforms which is badly hitting not only the domestic market but even exports are being suffered to a greater extent.