Chennai: No one should complain about Tamil going missing from the roads of the State, Chief Minister M K Stalin said, urging traders to put up name boards in Tamil of their own volition rather than out of compulsion or pressure from the government.
Addressing the members of the Tamil Nadu Traders Welfare Board on Tuesday at the Secretariat, Stalin said that the president of the Federation of Tamil Nadu Traders’ Associations (Tamil Nadu Vanigar Sangangalin Peramaippu) A M Vikramaraja and other office bearers had assured him that all name boards would be converted into Tamil soon.
Vikramaraja and the office bearers would periodically call on him and place demands for the welfare of the trading community and his government had recently extended the period for renewing license issued for opening shops by local bodies to three years from the earlier one year, he said.
Similarly, the lease period of shops in urban local bodies was extended to 12 years from nine years with effect from August 1, he said, adding that his government was particular that shop owners and small traders, too, conducted their business without any hitch and not just big industries.
Recalling the formation of the traders welfare board, the first of its kind in the country in 1989, by former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, he said it was launched with a corpus fund of Rs 2 crore, which had now grown to 4.05 crore.
Besides, the number of traders, coming under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax, State Value Added Tax and the Goods and Services Act, registering with the board had also gone up to 88,219 due to the various initiatives by the government like waiver of membership fee.
Calling for bringing in more traders into the board, Stalin listed out the schemes launched after his government took charge. They include scholarships for children of members that was Rs 10000 for professional courses and Rs 5000 for other courses, benefitting 94 students till now.
The marriage assistance had been increased from Rs 5000 to Rs 10,000 and compensation to the families of those who passed away, too, had been raised to Rs 3 lakh from Rs 1 lakh, benefitting 390 families, he said. Compensation for loss of business due to fire had been hiked to Rs 20,000 and 29 members had benefited from it.
Similarly, all assistance given to affected traders had been increased and in the past three years Rs 3.29 crore had been given away as assistance to 8,883 traders, he said.
