JOWAI: The All Jaintia Youth Welfare Organization has demanded that issuing of fresh and renewal of ‘Trading License’ to non-locals should be stopped immediately in the entire Jaintia Hills region.
In a release issued here, the AJYWO informed that if the JHADC stops issuing Trading License to outsiders, it will only benefit local people as there will opportunities for them to start doing different kinds of business and earn livelihood.
“The JHADC in the past has randomly issued trading license to non-tribal traders thereby affecting the locals particularly the unemployed youth”, the AJYWO President MH Dkhar stated.
“Almost all kind of shops and business were controlled by non-locals, be it vegetable shops, grocery shops, motor parts, pan shops, cloth stores besides others,” Dkhar added.
The AJYWO informed that after the imposition of the ban on coal mining and other coal related business, almost all people particularly unemployed youth in East Jaintia Hills are now jobless.
According to the AJYWO, a local youth can never compete with any non-local traders if both of them are running the same business in a particular market, therefore its mandatory that the JHADC should not only stop issuing fresh license but also to stop renewal of all those existing licenses.
According to the AJYWO, the JHADC has taking Trading License as one of the sources of income, which is a violation against the JHADC Trading Act itself. In the Act, it is clearly mentioned that Trading License may be issued to non-tribal traders only in regard to those types of trades which local people do not have the capacity to do it by themselves at that particularly time.