RCJS to intensify stir in TS, AP

Rashtra Chenetha Jana Samakhya decides to spread the movement to neighbouring States

Hyderabad: A protest meeting against imposition of GST on Handlooms was jointly organised by Rashtra Chenetha Jana Samakhya (RCJS- Telangana and AP) and Federation of Handloom Organisations in Hyderabad on Saturday. The protest meeting was the culmination of the campaign against GST conducted by RCJS. The GST on handlooms is putting additional burden of 5 per cent to 12 per cent tax on the operations of the handloom weaving.

The meeting was attended by about 300 representatives of handloom cooperative societies from both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, artisan societies, DASTKAR, several civil society organisations and consumers of traditional handmade products. They threatened to launch a second civil disobedience movement. The organisers are planning to spread the movement to Orissa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, North East states in the coming three months.

Speakers condemned the authorities for forcing handloom societies to register under GST and threatening them to deny access to supply of yarn and silk. The new GST regime is making handmade products more expensive and luxury goods more attractive, with clear intention of killing the traditional handmade products sectors to pave way to corporatise it, they alleged.

The participant organisations declared selling their products directly to the consumers in local markets without collecting or paying any tax.

GST has brought the khadi, handloom and handicrafts under tax for the first time in independent India, Macharla Mohan Rao of RCJS told the anti - GST meeting.