Prime Minister Narendra Modi (PM Narendra Modi) dedicated three projects worth Rs 3,222 crore to the nation in Assam. To give a boost to the petroleum sector, PM Modi inaugurated the INDMAX unit of Indian Oil's Bongaigaon Refinery, Secondary Tank Farm of Oil India Limited at Madhuban in Dibrugarh and a Gas Compressor Station at Hebra Village in Tinsukia. On this occasion, Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that Rs 95,000 crore will be invested in the gas and oil sector of Assam for the projects started by the Prime Minister.

INDMAX is an indigenously developed technology by the IOC that produces LPG and high-octane gasoline from various petroleum products. This unit will increase the crude processing capacity of the refinery from 2.35 MMTPA (million MT per year) to 2.7 MMTPA. At the same time, with its commissioning, LPG production will increase from 50 TMT (thousand metric tons) to 257 TMT and motor spirit (Petrol) production will increase from 210 TMT to 533 TMT.

This is how petrochemical and gas projects will benefit

The secondary tank farm of Oil India Limited is designed for the safe storage of about 40,000 kilo liters of crude oil. With this, water has been separated from Wet Crude Oil. This 490 crore rupees project will also have a dehydration unit with a capacity of 10,000 kilo liters per day.

The Gas Compressor Station at Makum in Tinsukia district will increase the country's crude oil production capacity by about 16500 metric tons per year. Built at a cost of Rs 132 crore, this station has 3- low pressure booster compressors and 3 high-pressure lifter compressors.

On Friday, on the issue of Goods and Services Tax (GST) and e-commerce, business organizations are divided over Friday's 'Bharat Trade Bandh'. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), a trade union, has called for a nationwide bandh. CAT claims that eight crore businessmen from more than 40,000 business organizations will be involved in the India trade-off. At the same time, some other trade organizations said that they are not supporting the bandh.

Kat said that the All India Transport Welfare Association representing one crore transporters has supported the bandh. The hawkers' joint action committee, the national organization of hawkers, also supported the shutdown. However, other trade organizations such as the Federation of All India Trade Chambers and the Bharatiya Udyog Vyapar Mandal said that they are not supporting the bandh. CAT general secretary Praveen Khandelwal said that 1,500 big and small organizations from all states will protest against the GST amendment. He said that essential services like drug shops, milk and vegetable shops have been kept out of the bandh.

Trade board is not in favor of bandh for some demands

At the same time, VK Bansal, National General Secretary of Federation of All India Trade Chambers said that in favor of some demands we are not in favor of closing shops. However, we believe that GST has deviated from its original objective during the last 43 months. Rakesh Yadav, general secretary of the Indian Industry Trade Board, Delhi, said that we are not supporting the bandh. He said that his organization has given memorandum to the government on issues related to GST.

Angry among traders due to changed rules

Khandelwal said that on December 22 and thereafter, several unilateral amendments were made in the GST rules, due to which there is great anger among traders across the country. Through these amendments, unlimited powers have been given to the tax authorities, in particular, now any officer can suspend or cancel the GST registration number of any trader for any reason, according to his discretion. Not only this, the tax officer can now seize the bank account and property of any trader and the important thing is that before doing this, no notice will be given to the trader and no chance of hearing will be given. What kind of rule is this? Businessmen have been denied their fundamental rights.

The new rule will increase corruption

He said that such rules will not only increase corruption but officers will be able to harass any businessman. Similarly, traders will also be deprived of taking credit for their money which is deposited with the department as input. Apart from this, there are many other rules in which the businessman is denied fundamental rights. He said whether such laws are justified in democracy? He stressed that we support the government's action against those who are not following the law, but the history of the last 75 years shows that whenever the authorities were given such rights, the oppression of traders across the country Has been done. In this sense, there is a lot of concern and resentment among the traders about these amendments.