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G. Gurumurthy

COIMBATORE, March 22

COTTON textile production and related trading activity in the major manufacturing centres in Tamil Nadu came to a halt following the one-day strike called on Friday by weavers in the State to protest the levy of excise duty on hank yarn.

The token strike seemed to have had a greater impact in the powerloom-driven weaving centres of Salem, Namakkal, Erode and Karur where the local weavers, along with cotton yarn traders, took pains to ensure that the protest closure of business was a success.

Mr V. V. Sadayappan, President of the Salem-based Federation of Tamilnadu All Yarn Merchants' Association, which is spearheading the impost on hank yarn, said the Centre should roll back the duty in light of the burden it would cast on small-time handloom and powerloom weavers.

He said the excise duty refund scheme announced by the Government for handloom weavers would simply not work due to the procedural formalities involved in claiming the refund.

The move to slap duty on hank yarn, he felt, would only result in more `bill-less' deals in the yarn market, thereby, further eroding the income to the Government.

He told Business Line that the protest closure of business was a success across all the textile production centres in the State and said that he wanted the Government to withdraw the duty totally.

The loss of business on account of the strike was put at above Rs 25 crore by various textile trade associations. Excise revenue collection from yarn and textile processors in Tamil Nadu would have been dented, though excise duty is collected on a fortnightly basis.

In the meantime, members of various textile bodies from the State have approached the Union Textile Minister and the Finance Ministry with a request to roll back the duty on hank yarn. Some of these bodies have favoured slicing the excise duty from the announced 8 per cent to 4 per cent.

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