NEW DELHI: The Confederation of All India Traders ( CAIT) has strongly opposed the decision of Delhi Government to impose ban on entry of Diesel vehicles into from 1st October, 2022 to 28th February, 2023.
Condemning the decision CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that this decision of Delhi government will grossly and adversely affect the business of Delhi particularly at a time when these five months are always good for business due to festival and wedding season falling in these months only.
Khandelwal said that it will ruin the Delhi trade to a larger extent and therefore the Delhi traders are in much anguish and will oppose the arbitrary & obnoxious order tooth & mail. CAIT has convened a meeting of leading business associations of Delhi on 29th June o decide the future course of action on this critical issue. Since it will also badly affect the transport business, the CAIT is in talks with transport organisations and in collaboration will launch an agitation against Delhi Government.
Mr. Khandelwal said that environment protection is certainly an important issue and all necessary steps must be taken but t should also be ensured that no other business should be adversely affected by any decision of the government.
He said this decision will result into a great crisis as with this draconian decision no goods will come to Delhi nor goods can be sent from Delhi for five months as all the goods in Delhi come in trucks from other states and trucks run on diesel.
Due to the long distances no trucks can run on electric or CNG power. In this view, this decision of the government is redundant and has been taken without taking the consequences into consideration. To apprise the the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Vinay Kumar Saxena about the consequences of the order and will urge to stay the decision and if need be the CAIT will seek intervention of the Central Government.
Khandelwal said that said that the decision under question reflects the anti-trade attitude of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. It is noteworthy that Delhi is the largest distribution center of the country and the revenue of Delhi Government is largely dependent on business activities. If this order is implemented, then there will be a big hurdle in the movement of goods in Delhi from other states and from Delhi to other states because the entry of trucks will be prohibited in Delhi which is not practical.
“If order is implemented, will the traders of Delhi go to border of neighbouring states for receiving or delivering goods which is not possible as also such situation will create unnecessary hurdles of GST and goods will become expensive in Delhi. It may cause shifting of Delhi trade to nearby states,”.
Khandelwal said that this decision of Delhi Government will put immense restrictions on Delhi trade will result into stoppage of all types of business activities in Delhi which will result in major disruption in business and huge loss of revenue to Delhi Government.
Chief Minister Kejriwal is himself hurling an axe on his own feet, he said, adding that the traders of Delhi will stand firmly against this decision and will also start a big movement against the Delhi government. He also said that this is a big conspiracy against the business and traders of Delhi.
He further said that of course the government has exempted essential commodities from this ban, but essential commodities constitute only 10 percent of Delhi’s trade. The remaining 90 percent of the goods are of other goods which come to Delhi from other states through trucks. Does the government want to shut down all such businesses for five months?”
“The biggest question is, how will the goods come to Delhi and how will the goods go from Delhi to other states? The traders of Delhi will definitely ask the Delhi government for its answer,” he added.