A shutter-down strike call jointly given by the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI), All Pakistan Textile Processing Mills Association (APTPMA) and other trade/business/industrial bodies went unheeded as business activities in all the major eight bazaars around Clock Tower Chowk continued normally till the filing of this story on Wednesday.
The trader bodies, earlier during a press conference on Tuesday at FCCI complex, had given a shutter-down strike call to express their anguish against proceedings under sections 38 and 40-B of Sales Tax Act.
The trade bodies had also threatened to choke entire business, trade, commerce and industrial activities in the city if the government won’t accede to their demands.
However, traders, shopkeepers and businessmen of Faisalabad city have rejected the strike call and continued their business activities in Jhang Bazaar, Bhowana Bazaar, Aminpur Bazaar, Chiniot Bazaar, Katchery Bazaar, Rail Bazaar, Karkhana Bazaar, Montgomery Bazaar and other adjacent markets and shopping plazas.
Talking to media, Shahid Razzaq Sikka, president Anjuman Tajiran Faisalabad City, said the strike call was given without taking the traders, shopkeepers and businessmen into confidence.
He said a group of industrialists and traders wanted to avoid paying their due share of tax to the government and therefore resorted to strike call to pressurise the government and its departments.
Shahid Razzaq Sikkah, however, appealed to the government to provide subsidies and incentives to traders and businessmen, besides providing protection and security to their businesses so that they could continue to contribute to the national progress.
