GST Protest: 1,100 cinema across Tamil Nadu to go on strike from Monday

New Delhi: After the “historic” launch of GST, protests erupted in many parts of the country against the new tax regime. Around 1,100 cinema owners across Tamil Nadu called for an indefinite strike from Monday.

In Kashmir, most of the shops and other business establishments were shut on Saturday to protest against GST in the state, prompting authorities to impose restrictions on the assembly of people in parts of Srinagar as a precautionary measure.

Majority of cloth shops in Gujarat remained shut while those open said they did not carry out any transaction.

BJP chief Amit Shah, however, said that the new tax regime would accelerate the country's economic growth and end the ‘inspector raj’.

The GST was formally launched in Delhi in at midnight in Parliament.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley wondered why certain traders are complaining about the GST rates when the ultimate burden of taxation will fall on consumers. He said the consumers are not complaining about (GST) because the government has kept the rates at reasonable levels.

Meanwhile the government claimed that sugar supplies and prices in the retail and wholesale markets will not be affected due to teething problems that traders may face.

Slamming the Modi government over the GST roll out, senior Trinamul leader Partha Chatterjee said GST will prove to be a bane for lakhs of small traders nation-wide.

Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram too hit out at the Centre saying the GST has many “defects” and its implications will be known only in due course.