Erode textile merchants on strike against 5 pc GST on textile

Demanding exemption for textiles from the Goods and Services Tax, retail and wholesale shops and yarn merchants here are on a three-day shut down.
On the second day of the strike, called by the Erode Handloom Cloth Merchants Association, about 3,000 odd textile shops here remained closed.
President of the association Ravichandran said the shtudown was total.
He said the association submitted to the District Collector a memorandum addressed to the Prime Minister seeking withdrawal of the five per cent GST proposed for textiles.
If the GST was levied, textile trade would be affected heavily, he claimed.
Erode is a major textile centre along with Tirupur and Coimbatore in western Tamil Nadu.