The roughly 70,000 textile traders in Goodluck Textile Market have refused to register for GST, and over the past week the Rs 35,000 crores MMF sector has come to a standstill with strikes, protests and public meetings. As a textile trader, who is fasting outside his shop against the GST order says till now, there was no tax, nor there was register for excise or VAT as most traders are illiterate and cannot use computers. GST-compliance will hit profits, they feel.

Surat has around 170 big and small textile markets comprising more than 75,000 shops with a daily aggregate turnover of Rs 115 crores. Tarachand Kasat, convener of textile GST Sangharsh Samiti, says they want the government to keep GST only till the yarn level as GST will mess up things and result in huge job losses in the industry.

The city's 7.5 lakh powerloom weavers have kept away from the traders' strike but they are unhappy about being placed in the 18 per cent GST slab. They have asked for the 12 per cent slab benefit of input tax credit (ITC), and exemption for weaving job-work. They also want anti-dumping duty on Chinese fabrics. From July 1 about 70 per cent of weaving units operate on job-work and the master weavers have decided to stop the supply of raw material.

Ashish Gujarati, President of Pandesara Weavers (PWCSL), say the strike could hurt employment in the textile value chain that involves about 14.5 lakh workers.