LBT saga : NDs to stop billing in Maharashtra till May 16

All the major IT national distributors held a two hours long meeting with Mumbai based Trader's Association of Information & Technology (TAIT) at Hotel Krishna Palace in Mumbai to discuss on the local body tax (LBT) issue. The meet was attended by western region heads of national distributors, including Ingram Micro, Rashi Peripherals, Pacific, neoteric infomatique, Savex, Creative Peripherals and Distributors, Iris Computers, KK Oversees and iBall. The meet concluded with the result that all the present NDs, unanimously supported TAIT and verbally committed to stop billing of any material till May 16 across Maharashtra.

Speaking to /The DQ Week/, Rushabh Shah, president,TAIT confirmed, "We had called a meet with all the national distributors on May 9. Compuage and Redington are the only ones who could not attend, but later gave their consent agreeing to 'No Billing' for a weeks time. We are delighted to see that our distributors are supporting their channel in this wee hours. Other than local IT associations of Mumbai such as ISODA and ASIRT, we have been receiving support from all across Maharashtra. Even our protest was supported by a south based IT association, who has also given their consent to call for a token /bandh/ in major cities of South."

The move against LBT has been growing day by day as many associations have started extending their support. "We are completely supported by Federation of Associations of Maharashtra (FAM) representing 750 trade associations in the state. We have already declared a call for indefinite trade bandh till the LBT is removed, even as the agitation entered its 18^th day," said Shah.

While showing its support to TAIT, Ketan Patel, CEO of Creative Peripherals and Distributors said, "We agreed to TAIT 's stand. Already we have shut down our offices in Pune and Nagpur for more than a weeks' time, where the LBT has been implemented. Currently we have opened our headquartered in Mumbai to fulfill the support requirement of non LBT regions, but we have closed our Lamington Road office. We are fully supporting our channel. However, we are hopeful that Maharashtra government will take a positive solution in the coming weeks."

The move, however, irked traders who said there is no need to levy LBT since VAT already exists and the proposed general sales tax (GST) will cover all local levies.