Traders form nexus to evade taxes

New Delhi: Traders of Delhi, UP and Uttrakhand have formed a nexus with the help of UP roadways employees who reserve seats of buses to smuggle goods. The nexus makes travelling in these buses nightmarish and causes heavy loss to the treasury of state governments. With this syndicate, the traders not only evade the taxes but also put the passengers safety at risk.

Trickery is employed to make treasury loss to three state governments by using roadways buses a mode of transport to smuggle the goods via UP roadways buses on the route of Delhi to Kotdwara (Uttrakhand). The bus driver and conductor do not allow the passengers to board the buses as the smuggled items occupy a number of seats in the bus and the traders pay them minimal money as a bribe to evade the taxes from the respective agencies of these three states.

The smuggling of consumer goods is likely to peak during the festive shopping season. It was feared that the same means could also be used for smuggling arms and ammunition and contraband liquor and drugs into Delhi and Uttakhand.

The smuggling operations, allegedly done with the connivance of certain interstate bus operators, were affecting the finances of three states.

The majority of the passengers are at the mercy of the bus drivers and conductors who not only stopped the bus at midnight in Bijnor and other Western UP areas but also asked them to get down from the buses so that they can unload the smuggled items to the traders.

This reporter was also travelling on a UP Roadways bus on October 10. The conductor stopped the bus at Bijnor for over half an hour and suddenly some people assembled there and unloaded the bus and asked the passengers to get down from the bus at midnight.

Deepak Singh, another passenger in the bus, said,  “This is not the first time and this is not the only bus in which this sort of transportation takes place. Almost every second bus has this sort of nexus.”

What’s more, there are no security checks of the goods and individuals.