Faced with protests from the iron and steel industry from all across the state, Excise and Taxation Department of Punjab government today modified its two-day-old notification for the above industry. As per the January 28 notification, in-put tax credit on iron and steel goods was to be available only in the hands of the first person making purchases from a manufacturer or an importer of such goods in the state of Punjab. Now, this benefit will be passed on up to four stages of the traders.

Confirming the same, Excise and Taxation Commissioner (ETC), A Venuprasad said, “Today industry delegations from Mandi Gobindgarh, Ludhiana and few other cities met us. While Mandi Gobindgarh industry demanded that benefit should pass on till the third stage, Ludhiana industry was pressing for upto four stages. So we have agreed to Ludhiana industry’s demand.” Earlier, this benefit used to be passed on up to any level of buyer of the same product and thus in certain cases it used to go even up to 100 levels, said ETC.

The Ludhiana delegation was accompanied by chief parliamentary secretary Harish Rai Dhanda. It needs to be that ETC had mentioned earlier that the change had been done to plug the tax evasion and bogus VAT refunds which were causing loss to state’s exchequer. In Ludhiana alone, bogus VAT bills worth Rs 300 crores were unearthed and multi-crores scam was detected in Jalandhar as well, said ETC.