Union Power Minister Manohar Lal Khattar attended a traders' conference (vyapari varg sammelan) in Amritsar on Saturday, 13 June 2026, as part of a special public-outreach campaign organised to mark the completion of 12 years of the Narendra Modi-led central government. The event brought together representatives from trade and industry to discuss the government's economic reform agenda over the past decade.

Context

Khattar, posting in Hindi on X, said he 'participated in the traders' conference held in Amritsar under the special public-contact campaign organised to mark the successful completion of 12 years of the central government under the leadership of respected Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.' The outreach campaign is part of a broader BJP effort to communicate governance milestones directly to business associations across states, timed to the government's anniversary.

Amritsar, a major commercial hub in Punjab, was one of the venues chosen for this round of engagement. The city's trading community — spanning textiles, food processing, and retail — makes it a strategically significant stop for any national business-outreach drive.

Policy Backdrop

At the conference, Khattar held detailed discussions with trade and industry representatives on what he described as 'historic reforms' by the central government. Key themes included simplification of the tax system, promotion of digital transactions, strengthening of logistics and infrastructure, and steps taken to empower the MSME sector.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST), rolled out in July 2017, replaced a fragmented multi-levy system with a unified indirect tax regime — a reform frequently cited by the government as a landmark ease-of-doing-business measure. The Digital India initiative, launched in July 2015, expanded digital payments infrastructure, while the Make in India programme, announced in September 2014, sought to improve India's investment climate. The Udyam Registration portal, notified in July 2020, simplified MSME registration and broadened access to credit-linked support schemes.

Khattar noted that policies implemented under the Prime Minister's 'visionary leadership' had 'increased ease of doing business, created new opportunities, and made the trading community a strong partner in the country's development journey.'

Stakeholders and Impact

The MSME sector is among the most directly affected constituencies of the reforms discussed at the conference. Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises account for a significant share of India's employment and export earnings, and successive post-2014 policy packages have targeted them through easier credit access, revised classification norms, and market-linkage programmes.

Traders in states like Punjab, where small and medium businesses dominate the commercial landscape, have been both beneficiaries and vocal stakeholders in debates over GST rate rationalisation and digital payment mandates. Direct engagement sessions of this kind serve as feedback loops between the central government and ground-level business sentiment.

What's Next

The Amritsar event is one node in a wider series of state-level outreach meetings being conducted under the same campaign. Observers will watch whether the feedback gathered at such conferences feeds into upcoming GST Council deliberations or MSME-related provisions in the next Union Budget. Khattar's participation — as a senior Union Minister and former Chief Minister of neighbouring Haryana — signals the political weight the BJP is attaching to trader-community engagement ahead of future electoral cycles in north India.