Condemning the Congress-led Punjab Government for raising one tax after another, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Friday stated that the common man was being forced to bear the brunt for the Government’s “fiscal management”.

“The 10 percent surcharge on movement of freight and increase in registration charges on purchase of new vehicles is the latest round of taxes being imposed on the common man who has already witnessed a 20 percent hike in power tariff besides municipal taxes during the Congress regime,” said the former finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa.

He said that the latest round of taxes are being imposed ostensibly for social welfare measures even though it is a fact that the same were being implemented smoothly by the previous SAD- BJP government. This only proves our contention that poor fiscal policies are responsible for the present state of affairs, he said.

Stating that the government’s decision to impose 10 percent surcharge on movement of freight would adversely affect the manufacturing and trading sector in Punjab, Dhindsa said that this was a double blow to the industry which was already reeling due to the government’s failure to deliver power at a landing cost of Rs five per unit to them.

“Increase in registration charges could prove to be counter-productive and lead to vehicles being registered in the neighbouring states and the Union Territory of Chandigarh,” he said.

Asking why the common man should pay for the profligacies of the Congress Government, Dhindsa said that the Government had failed to achieve any of its targets in revenue collection during the late one and a half years.

“The excise and stamp duty collections have witnessed a negative growth. On the other hand, wasteful expenditure is being done to purchase luxury vehicles and renovations of ministerial bungalows…It seems the government is oblivious to the suffering of the people and is bent on oppressing each and every section of society,” he said.

Demanding a complete rollback on all new taxes as well roll back of power hikes imposed in stages in the last one and a half years, Dhindsa said that the SAD would organize a people’s movement against these “inhuman and intolerable taxes” and force the government to take them back.