Brick Kilners continuous to flees peoples

Brick Kilners continuous to flees peoples

Yash Khajuria   

JAMMU, June 12: Despite the repeated appeals of the brick kiln owners association to the state government regarding the demand of revival of the rates of the bricks, the administration is not looking a bit serious over this all.

Brick kiln owners are annoyed of the behavior of the state administration regarding the whole issue that is due to the rapid increase in the cost of the raw material being used in the procedure of brick manufacturing, like Coal, Firewood, Clay, Labour and other amenities included in the procedure of the same.

Since they have demand to the concerned authority to revive the rates of the brick which are still as they were previously revised.

According to Janak Raj Mahajan, president of the Brick Kiln Owners Association (BKOA) because of the non-revision of rates brick kiln owners are not getting their production cost back, resulting which all the 259 brick kilns owners are facing a lot of economic crisis. Since the rates of the raw material are increased aggressively so the expenditure for the production of bricks is ultimately increased.

Hence the government keeping all this in mind should revise the rates.  He said that as the government is not increasing the price of their product on the other prospect we are already paying tax on the raw material which we use, and the administration is imposing to pay input tax which is truly the injustice to brick kiln owners.

He said that the government should have to revise the rates on the pattern of the neighboring states including Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. As the BKOA has presented that the rates of B class bricks at Rs 4175 per thousand, rates of C class bricks at Rs 3800 per thousand and the rates of tiles at Rs 4375 per thousand. He further said that the rates of brick in Punjab are above Rs 4000 per thousand and in Himachal rates of brick is Rs 4500.

It is pertinent to mention here that the over half dozen brick kilns have been convicted by government after they found offensive for overcharging for bricks by the owners.

A special team οf officers led bу Assistant Commissioner, Jammu, has conducted inspections οf brick kilns іn R S Pura, Sub Division after regular interval and eight οf thе 15 brick kilns wеrе booked fοr various offences under provisions οf Labour Laws, Weights and Measurement Enforcement Act.

Same numbers of brick kilns were also booked by CAPD for overcharging and for not showing the rate lists and other offences under Essential Commodities Act-1980.

As par the existing government rates, the sale of class 'A' Bricks has been fixed at the rate of Rs 4100 per 1000 whereas the rate of Class 'B' bricks at the rate of Rs 3100 per 1000 inclusive of loading and unloading as par norm anyone found overcharging his license may be cancelled.

But due to the unconsciousness of the administration the bricks are being sold at the rates of brick owners choice, at RS Pura Jammu, where the bricks are being sold at Rs 5500- 7500 per thousand on arguing the rate lists the brick owners said that till the government do not fix issue the new rate list they’ll sale brick on the same prices. Now the customers are annoyed by the overcharging of brick kiln owners.

On this issue when contacted to the Deputy Commissioner Jammu, Sanjeev Verma, said that they (Brick kiln owners) are asking for the increasing rates then what to do we cannot fix the rates only favorable to them. Since panel of experts after analyzing the whole matter have fixed the rates and if any of the brick kilner is overcharging they should by complaint by customer.