Traders in the national Capital will hold a protest on January 3 against sealing drive in Delhi. The decision was taken at a meeting held on Wednesday by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) which was attended by representatives of more than 75 prominent trade associations of Delhi.
CAIT national secretary general Praveen Khandelwal said sealing is one of the core and critical issuse of traders which is directly linked with their earnings. In last one year thousands of shops in Delhi have been sealed whereas the sword of sealing is hanging on other thousands of shops and no one is listening to the woes of the traders, he said.
Khandelwal said the matter is pending before the Supreme Court since a long time and in absence of any decision the traders are suffering greatly.
"The Monitoring Committee is working like a dictator with adamant attitude of sealing entire Delhi. Under such circumstances, the traders are left with no other alternative but to launch a city wide agitation. However, he categorically said that we are not against penal actions against all those people who have tress pass any Government land," he added.
He also said the CAIT has prepared a charter for the agitation which includes de-sealing of all shops which have been sealed and to stop all kinds of sealing in Delhi, the Government should either bring legislation in current session of the Parliament or bring an Ordinance immediately after the session. "The charter also demands that the markets which are about to be shifted, should get all sorts of infrastructure facilities at the shifting place and the notices issued by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCD) to all such shops should be withdrawn," he said.
Conversion charges on walled city, Sadar Bazar, Karol Bagh, Paharganj, Darya Ganj etc. should be made clear whether to be levied or not, he added.
Khandelwal further said that a bill or ordinance should contain a Cut-off date by which date the status quo should be maintained in Delhi. The traders are ready to pay any reasonable charges in lieu of that and laws and rules for the future should be made quite strict so that no one can defy the same, he said.