Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Oct. 14: The Nagaland Voluntary Consumers’ Organisation (NVCO) has requested the state government to put an end to the collection of toll carried out by several entities at the check-gates or highways in Nagaland.
Stating that in a welfare state, the government is responsible to maintain reasonable prices on goods and services in the state, the NVCO claimed that the prices of commodities are always on the rise, which is affecting the consumers.
“The toll tax (sic) is collected by all the municipal and town councils, including various organisations that collect illegal cash. However, the states which have implemented the Goods and Services Tax (GST) cannot impose any other tax other than the GST. Therefore, we are not asking for tax revision or reducing the amount of tax but we are asking the state government to stop the collection of toll tax in Nagaland completely,” the NVCO president, Kezhokhoto Savi told Eastern Mirror on Sunday.
Sating that the collection of tax by several entities on goods carriers was the root-cause of price-rise in the market, the NVCO maintained that all the cash collections were being repaid by the consumers indirectly.
In spite of the state government’s standing order banning collection of cash at the check-gates or highways and the Gauhati High Court order disallowing any entity from collecting cash on any highway in any manner, the NVCO alleged that several groups in Nagaland still collect ‘illegal taxes’ at check-gates in the state.
The statement from the NVCO comes in the wake of the hardware traders in Dimapur expressing unhappiness over the Dimapur Municipal Council’s (DMC) decision to revise the rate of entry tax collected per vehicle.
“The NVCO is shocked to see the revised rate of entry tax collected by Dimapur Municipal Council (DMC) as stated by the Dimapur Hardware Merchants’ Association which has increased from INR 450 to INR 3500. At the end of the day, the brunt of the toll tax collected by DMC will be faced by the consumers,” the NVCO stated.
