Cotton traders evade taxes

Adilabad: The cotton traders are doing business against rules in order to evade tax levied by the government. The farmers belonging to the districts of Adilabad, Nirmal, Mancherial and Asifabad have cultivated cotton on 3.5 lakh hectares of land out of which 50 lakh tonnes of cotton would yield, Marketing Officers estimated.

Traders purchased 10 lakh tonnes of cotton in Adilabad district. According to the marketing rules the traders should pay one per cent tax and four per cent VAT on their purchases. It is estimated that traders purchased cotton worth Rs 2.5 crore in the past three days at the Adilabad market yard and evaded tax worth Rs 240 lakh. So is the case of the market yards in Boath, Ichoda, Indravelli, Jainath mandals.

Nirmal has the highest number of ginning mills after Adilabad. Traders, making ginning mills as their business centres, are continuing the trade in spite of ban on purchases during holidays to the market yards. A few traders even deputed their staff to the villages to purchase cotton from farmers and transport it directly to ginning mills.A farmer, Srikanth Reddy, said the traders earn Rs 500 per quintal additionally on the cotton purchased during market holidays. “Marketing officers fix prices on market working days. But, now the ginning centres have become the price fixers. The traders are fixing rates as they wish,” he added.

Traders at Mancherial are purchasing cotton by reducing the price to Rs 4,500 per quintal.When asked Adilabad marketing officer Santosh Kumar told The Hans India, that taxes will be levied on the accounts of purchased cotton. The farmers’ associations are angry with the marketing officer’s reply. The farmer’s association leader Boranna demanded filing of cases against illegal traders and collection of taxes from them.