Shimla, April 1 (Inditop.com) Political parties in Himachal Pradesh are still hopeful that the central government will restore the tax exemption scheme that has drawn industries from several sectors to the state in the past seven years.
The tax holiday scheme expired Wednesday. The National Democratic Alliance government had granted a special industrial development package to the state in 2003 for 10 years that provided 100 percent excise duty exemption. However, it was later curtailed to March 2010.
‘I have spoken to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh several times in this regard and we are hopeful that the package would be extended to its original time-frame of 2013,’ Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal told Inditop here Thursday.
‘We are again planning to meet Manmohan Singh shortly in New Delhi to apprise him about the setback the tiny state will have to face with the expiry of the special industrial package,’ he said.
Leader of Opposition and Congress leader Vidya Stokes said: ‘We are also quite sensitive to the issue. We have met central leaders and we will again meet them to get the industrial package extended till 2013.’
Despite intense lobbying from the state, Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee allowed the package to lapse as he is said to be looking to clean up the exemption-laden tax system before the launch of the goods and service tax (GST) regime in fiscal 2011-12.
A state industry department official said: ‘The central government is not keen to extend the industrial package as it is against the GST.’
Dhumal, however, blamed the central government for discriminating against Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, which had got a similar package.
‘When the centre has allowed an extension of industrial package in Jammu and Kashmir and the north-eastern states, why has it deprived the hill states of the benefit. We (Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand) are even ready to jointly fight – both on legal and political front – against the centre’s discriminatory attitude,’ he said.
