Iron Handicraft industry, which exports products to foreign countries and earns foreign currencies in crores, is in dilemma after Goods and Services implementation as due to various anomalies in IGST and GST, they are suffering from an economic slowdown. From July 1, when the GST rollout to till date, crores of rupees are stuck in the process of refund mechanism.
Behat region of Uttar Pradesh, is famous for handicraft manufacturing products of iron. The villagers in Behat make various attractive artworks from iron and this trend was started in 1972 when a businessman started with making iron bells. After some years, the villagers also started making various iron artworks on a small platform and initiated to sell out this stuff to Saharanpur and Delhi exporters.
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This business had taken a flight in that region and in 1996, they started taking the license for export. The companies with the export license include Haji Shamshad’s Sabara Overseas, Mirza Atiq Ahmed’s Indian Iron Creation, Creative International Export of Haji Siddiq, and Haji Mohammed Intezaar Mirza’s Unique Export House. They export the iron products to Japan, America, Brazil, Greece, Canada, Greece, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Switzerland, Chile, Italy, and France. Apart from this, there are so many families who export their Artifacts on the order basis.
This business brings around 50-60 crores worth of foreign currency every year and it is much affected by the implementation of IGST and GST. Mohammad Asif Ansari, Manager, Indian Village Handcraft said that after GST implementation, Crores of rupees of these businesses are still not refunded back by GST network. At the time of VAT, they are able to revise the monthly statement in coming 30 days, but it is not happened with GST till now.
When they lodge their complaints to Customer Care, Tweet Account, and Website, they get a single reply only which is ‘Shortly’. The government has not provided any solution for refund process and due to this many exporters are not getting the refunds which are in Crores. This is rendering adverse impacts on the financial stature of the businesses. The businesses are now demanding to shun away reverse charge mechanism instead of delaying it further. Generally, exporters pay 18 to 28% GST to producers. Previously, there were H and E forms for exporters in a VAT, which made the tax rate at 0%, but Merchant Exporter can purchase it at .05%.
