Bowing down to the demand of the industrial category consumers based in MIDC areas across the State, the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation’s (MIDC) issued fresh demand notes for water charges without adding the component of GST to it. Opposing the MIDC’s move to recover pending Goods and Services Tax (GST) from the consumers, the plot owners in various MIDC areas have announced that they would not pay the charges along with the pending tax. In an attempt to recover the tax, MIDC had issued a demand note for water charges along with the pending tax amount from July 2017. It was looking forward to recovering the GST from the consumers right from July 1, 2017, the day when the new tax regime was introduced.

 

It is worth mentioning here that MIDC has been failing to collect the GST charges on its services being offered to the industrial units. The water charges, fire charges, drainage charges and even the transfer of MIDC plots attract GST. But, for reasons best known to the MIDC officials, it did not collect the tax from the consumers. But then all of sudden, the MIDC officials had woken up and abruptly decided to make consumers pay it along with interest and penalty.

 

Commenting on the issue, President of Butibori Manufacturers’ Association Nitin Lonkar said the consumers received some relief. “But it is not a permanent solution. We want the MIDC to roll back the move of collecting pending tax. How can MIDC ask the consumers to pay the GST after so long. The Government should intervene and abolish it,” he said. Lonkar also said that a delegation of office-bearers of various bodies of the entrepreneurs across the State will soon meet the Maharashtra Minister of Industries Uday Samant and urge him to look into the matter. Depending on the size of the units, the consumers had received bills with additional amounts ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 lakh. Opposing the recovery drive, the consumers said that the consumers were not at fault and thus should not be forced to pay the tax.