1 week ago
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The United Merchants Chamber’s (UMC) Kollam territory committee is organising a dharna connected Saturday (May 30) seeking contiguous authorities involution to code the issues of those moving successful hotel, bakery, and catering sectors. “Over 3,000 hotels, bakeries, and catering units person unopen down owed to the skyrocketing prices of indispensable commodities and commercialized cooking gas, compounded by substance terms hikes and proviso shortages. Furthermore, the NH 66 widening task has displaced implicit 2,000 commercialized establishments successful Kollam alone, leaving galore traders and workers unemployed and burdened with monolithic debts,” said UMC members astatine a property conscionable present connected Friday.
Six-pointer charter
The UMC has enactment guardant a six-point charter of demands to alleviate the fiscal situation plaguing tiny and mean businesses. Chief among these is the contiguous rollback of unregulated terms hikes connected home and commercialized LPG cylinders by lipid selling companies, alongside a thorough probe into black-marketing and hoarding successful the cooking state proviso chain. To antagonistic vigor costs, the enclosure is demanding subsidised solar-powered electrical stoves for each commercialized kitchens and rental agreements beryllium accepted arsenic valid documentation for tenant merchants to avail of the subsidy.
Addressing the rehabilitation of NH 66 evictees, the UMC demands swift disbursement of ₹2 lakh each to each displaced traders, successful enactment with a High Court order. “Affected merchants who person been incapable to restart their businesses should beryllium allowed to acceptable up shops successful the vacant passages beneath the recently constructed pillar-elevated highways,” they said. The enclosure has besides called for the instauration of a dedicated Ministry for Small and Medium Traders to systematically code the ongoing grievances of the sector.
