The Federation of Surat Textiles Traders Association (FOSTTA) on Wednesday requested that the state government remove the textile markets in Surat’s Salabatpura, Mahidharpura, and Limbayat areas from the Disturbed Areas Act as they were “creating hurdles for business.”
Under the Disturbed Areas Act, a district collector can notify a particular area of a city or town as a “disturbed area”, which is generally done based on the history of communal riots in the area.
Immovable assets, such as property, can only be sold or rented in such areas if the collector expressly signs off on an application made by the property’s owner, seller, renter, or buyer.
In a letter to Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Home Minister Harsh Sanghavi, FOSTTA stated that traders face numerous challenges in renting shops in these areas’ textile markets because they must obtain a mandatory ‘Ashant dhara’ certificate.
In the letter, FOSTTA general secretary Champalal Bothra said that textile traders have to spend Rs 8,000 for getting the necessary documents and also have to pay for a lawyer to prepare documents.
It takes around a month to get the Ashant dhara documents made and the traders also have to produce other required documents like the 11-month rent agreement.
FOSTTA also highlighted that this plight is mostly being faced by medium and small traders, as they have to visit the collector’s office regularly to obtain such documents and can apply for GST number — necessary for conducting business — only after the rent agreement has been made.
Earlier, representations through memorandum was made to the Surat district collector by FOSTTA against the rule of Ashant dhara, but till date no steps have been taken.
Bothra stated, “If a Hindu shop owner wanted to give his shop on rent to another Hindu trader, Ashant Dhara documents are necessary. This makes business difficult for traders and conflict arises between shop owner and tenant as to who will bear the one-month rent while the documents are being processed.”
Surat Mercantile Association president Narendra Saboo said, “There are 165 textile trading markets in Surat which houses around 65,000 trading shops… Only 20 percent of the shops are run by owners while the remaining are given in rent… Majority of the shop owners and tenants are from other states and they face great difficulties. We request the state government to remove Disturb Areas Act from textile markets in Surat,” he added.