Bizmen worried over GST Dept employees ‘giving’ their sales-purchase data to rivals
Many industrialists in the city are worried over easy availability of their sales and purchase data. There are allegations by some businessmen against staff in the GST Department that for a few bucks, the data is shared with their rivals.
Talking to The Tribune, Badish Jindal, president, FOPSIA and All Industries Trade Forum, said businessmen were struggling due to recessionary trends. Besides, they were now haunted by a new fear that their sales-purchase data was no longer safe. Some employees of the GST Department have started ‘selling’ the data, Jindal alleged, adding that earlier, Ludhiana businessmen used to get calls from agencies in Delhi that they could get complete sales-purchase data of their competitors by paying around Rs 20,000. Now, many agents in Ludhiana are offering to give the data at cheaper rates, even for Rs 1,000.
“The recession is already a big challenge but this new scam has added to woes of the businessmen. Nowadays, many agents are roaming in the market, who will procure you the complete sales-purchase data of your competitors for Rs 1,000 or so for a month. Most of such data is available on the GST Department’s website and it is quite easy to steal the same from there. Employees of the department, who have access to the website, can easily furnish the information,” Jindal alleged.
