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Himachal Govt. in the eye of a storm

Staff Correspondent

Imposition of professional tax in the State

SHIMLA: The recently imposed professional tax on at least 30 government or non-government categories working in the State is fast becoming a rallying point for unrest against the Virbhadra Singh government here. Central Government employees, bankers, State Government employees, State Secretariat staff, BSNL, LIC, Himachal Pradesh corporate sector employees, lawyers and other employees of various boards, corporations and universities now jointly plan to fight against this decision of the Government.

For quite some time now these employees are forming committees at block and district levels and now they have formed a Joint State Co-ordination Committee which has issued a call for a massive rally here in the State Capital this Wednesday. Lawyers from all over the State held a big rally last week outside the State Secretariat in protest against the imposition of professional tax.

A vast majority of the employees in the organised sector in the State are of the opinion that when they are paying all sorts of indirect and direct taxes including income tax then why are they unnecessarily being burdened with this new tax. To raise its income the State Government should stop misuse of public funds and reduce the size of its Cabinet, they feel. The recent induction of a dozen Parliamentary Secretaries on top of having a dozen Ministers in the small hill State's Cabinet has sparked the current unrest against the Government.

The confusion on VAT and its misuse by some traders, imposition of local area development tax and the burden of professional tax now have collectively created an enormous sense of disturbance among the lowly paid middle class in a government employees-dominated State.

Lawyers elected unopposed

The irritant of professional tax has generated so much heat that Shimla lawyers on Tuesday elected an unopposed panel in the Bar Association to fight this decision. "It has never happened in the history of the Bar here," said Kanwar Bhupinder Singh and Niranjan Verma, the new president and general secretary of the Bar Association. BJP also demands withdrawal

Former Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Prem Kumar Dhumal, meanwhile, has suggested that after the announcement of the so-called mega package of Rs 4000 crores to the State the Virbhadra Government should withdraw the professional tax imposed in the name of generating revenue.

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Himachal Govt. in the eye of a storm

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