MT News Service
Jammu, November 27: Tarun Uppal, a prominent social activist, leading businessman and Chairperson of Nirbhay Bharat Foundation, today met with several other prominent businessmen and entrepreneurs of Jammu, wherein all of them expressed grave concern over the fact that newly-inducted members of the Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCI) Jammu have been debarred from participating in the electoral process of the prestigious trade organisation.
They said that it was like a bolt from the blue when they came to know this fact from the office of CCI Jammu that all members enrolled after 2017 stand ineligible for voting in the upcoming elections of CCI despite approval of their membership by the CCI Jammu and payment of a hefty enrolment fee and annual membership fees, amounting to a sum of Rupees 25000-40,000 per member. The number of such disqualified members stands at about 500.
At the time of enrolment, all these members were told that in case the membership is not approved, they will be returned their deposits within one month as per rules. But now, it has been three years, and moreover they have been given the receipts of fees paid as well as Identity cards have also been issued to them. This is a clear indication of the fact that their membership had been approved. The debarred members want to know that on whose request in the court of law, they have been debarred from voting in the upcoming CCI elections and the reason behind such request.
After several enquiries, it has been found that majority among the deprived members are young entrepreneurs and technocrats, who had enrolled themselves as the members of CCI Jammu for professional and technical support in order to promote their respective businesses, but to their dismay, no one was available at the office of CCI Jammu for any kind of assistance, guidance and support to them during the entire period of COVID-19 crisis.
In addition to this, now that the elections for electing new team of CCI have been announced, the bigwigs associated with CCI since long who have always treated CCI as their private domain and have always resisted young trade leadership to emerge in Jammu, have again managed to keep away the newly-inducted entrepreneurs so that they can easily make the representative of their choice as the head of Jammu’s business fraternity.
They said, discrimination among the CCI members and denying them voting rights on choose and pick basis, that too without listening to them or giving them a genuine reason, will have a long-bearing effect on the working and future of CCI. and all this will also create a sense of insecurity among the enrolled members.
