: Chief Minister V Narayanasamy today said his government was keen that merchants and traders doing business in the Union Territory should carry on their activities with utmost protection and security.
Talking to reporters during his door to door visit to meet merchants and traders in shopping centres in a main thoroughfare, he said they often facedsecurity threat in the past. As soon as his government assumed office, care was taken to ensure that they could carry on businesses with utmost security, he claimed.
The CM, who was accompanied by Revenue and Industries Minister MOHF Shah Jahan,local legislators K Lakshminarayanan, (Congress) and R Siva (DMK) during his visit also said his meeting with the merchants was a pre budget initiative.
Puducherry's revenue was originating from local sales tax, excise duty and services tax.
He said that during his meeting with merchants they had expressed certain grievances which would be rectified in the coming budget.
He said government would adopt strategies to ensure convenience to taxpayers by keeping the tax structure at lower level so as to ensure that revenue escalated to the State Exchequer.
He said he had asked police to ensure that merchants and public did not face any insecurity while doing business in the shopping centres.
Narayanasamy also announced that the annual shopping festival which was discontinued during the previous AINRC regime would be revived and would be held for a month from December this year.
He said the festival would help merchants register good business and for the government to net massive revenue.
The government would encourage the festival to attract buyers from within Puducherry and from neighbouring districts of Tamilnadu.
