'Make in Punjab' policy on reforms to come up soon: Sukhbir

To boost industrial growth in the state, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today announced formation of a 'Make in Punjab' policy within one month.
Disclosing this while chairing a meeting of Cabinet sub-committee on tax reforms, the Deputy Chief Minister asked the Excise department to prepare a detailed report after examining present tax structure in neighbouring states.
He said the purpose of this exercise should be to rationalise VAT/sales tax/entry tax on various goods and items.
He said this would allow local industry to compete at par with neighbouring units.
Conceding a demand of the existing industry, Cabinet sub-committee also agreed to slash VAT/sales tax as well as imposing entry tax on certain goods and asked the department to prepare a comprehensive report after consulting the concerned departments at the earliest.

Sukhbir, who also holds Excise and Taxation portfolio, instructed the Excise and Taxation department to make VAT refund procedure in an easier, faster and time bound manner.

He said the refund should be ensured at the end of every month and instructed to clear the backlog by the end of this month.
Batting for the use of cutting edge technology, he asked the departmental officers to modernise the existing computerisation which should be made industry specific so that VAT refund gets automatically transferred into the accounts of industrialists and traders.
Besides, he also directed the department to launch computerisation of all integrated check posts at the earliest to plug the tax evasion thereby lessening congestion at barriers.

During the meeting, financial commissioner taxation Anurag Aggarwal informed that out of about 2.5 lakh registered dealers approximately 5000 firms apply for VAT refund and on an average a sum of Rs 65 crore is being refunded per month to the bearers.
He assured to the committee that VAT refund procedure would be made simpler at the earliest.
To curtail pollution level in densely populated cities like Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana, the cabinet sub-committee also consented to slash VAT on e-bikes and e-scooters.
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Sukhbir also lambasted Congress for launching a
"nefarious" campaign to "malign" Punjab and brand its entire youth as drug addicts.

"This is being done even though it was the laxity during the 10-years old Congress led UPA rule that narco-terrorism had reared its ugly head in the country", he alleged.
Divulging more, he said Punjab Police was taking strong action against the drug menace which has resulted in almost negligent availability of drugs in the state.
He attributed it to the large scale crackdown on peddlers as well as chemist shops. He said the intensity of the seizures was such that the recovery had gone up from a mere 2 kg in 2002 to 350 kg of heroin in 2014.

Deputy CM further said similarly a whopping 4.5 crore habit-forming pills and capsules were seized in the past two years.
Sukhbir informed that for the first time in a decade nearly, 1800 kg of raw material - pseudophedrine, ephedrine and metrophormine- used for making party drug ICE were seized in the past two years.
He further said the government had also started 19 Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST) centers to control the prevalence of intravenous drug abuse in collaboration with National Aids Control Society (NACO) Punjab.
He said the government had with the help of UNODC also started methadone maintenance therapy at Bathinda and Kapurthala for patients of intravenous drug abuse.