CAIT flags traders' inability to pay full salary for April, seeks Goyal's intervention

As the country battles COVID-19, traders' body CAIT on Thursday said traders are facing tremendous financial crunch and payment of full salary for April to their staff was next to impossible.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has written to Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal seeking his intervention in the matter.

"If such payments are made, the business of the traders will fall like anything and in absence of any inflow of money, such payments will be disastrous for the retail trade of the country and in turn will badly affect the economy," CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said in the letter to Goyal.

He said it is becoming difficult for traders to pay full salary for the month of April to their employees since they are experiencing "tremendous financial crunch and any full payment of salary to the employees for the April month is next to impossible".

CAIT said, while realising the unprecedented current situation, the government should devise a method under which "this crucial and critical issue is resolved to the satisfaction of all".

In a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday, CAIT had urged the government to allow traders to pay salaries as per a mutual agreement between the employer and the employee or allow them to pay 30 per cent of the salary to meet their livelihood needs.

Alternatively, the government may contribute 50 per cent of the salary and traders may contribute 25 per cent, CAIT had suggested.

"Under the current scenario, when there is no business and traders are overburdened with several financial obligations, a needy intervention from the government is required to meet the end of justice," the trader's body said in the letter to the finance minister.