The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) plans to launch a ‘Digital Rath’ for encouraging adoption of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) and digital payment amongst the trading community as well as other verticals of the non-corporate sector, the trade body said in a statement. This initiative would be part of CAIT’s 60-day ‘Digi Varta’ national campaign launched in the country on May 1, which will continue till June 30.

According to CAIT, payment technology global major MasterCard, the country’s lead banker HDFC Bank, and India’s premier accounting software company Tally Solutions Limited will be part of the ‘Digi Varta’ campaign.

B C Bhartia, national president, CAIT, said, “The campaign will help traders to adopt digital payments and meet the deadline of July 1 to transit from the current taxation system to the new GST.” He informed that to enable small enterprises realise the benefits of digitalisation and adopt technology at a fast pace,  six zonal conferences will be held at New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Nagpur, Bengaluru and Guwahati. This will be followed by state-level conferences in each state. The campaign will include market camps, seminars and workshops to be organised in close vicinity of small traders by Master Trainers being trained by CAIT in association with its partners.

CAIT, in association with MasterCard, had launched a campaign in 2015 to train trade leaders as Master Trainers, the statement added.

CAIT secretary general Praveen Khandelwal informed that a special feature of the campaign will be the introduction of a ‘Digital Rath’. This will be continuously driven in various parts of the country to educate and empower small businesses and the trading community on enhanced adoption of digital payments, and consequently realise a seamless transition to GST tax regime, benefitting last mile delivery of key objectives of the government.

“We strive to provide GST related hardware and software, financed through a special loan to help small businesses embrace digital payments and GST taxation system. CAIT stays committed to addressing the challenges being faced by our traders, including education amongst traders, incentives for adoption of technology, availability of affordable tools, etc to trigger transition to modernise business operations and procedures, benefitting industry at large.”