New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) Representatives from voluntary and social sector organisations Tuesday urged Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to provide tax relief to the sector.

A group of 24 representatives met the finance minister as part of the pre-Budget consultations and urged him that the voluntary organisations should be given relief under the Income Tax Act.

“Voluntary sector is suffering from a very serious existential crisis emerging out of recent changes made in the Income Tax Act,” said Rajesh Tandon, president of voluntary organisation PRIA.

“Several genuine voluntary organisations have reached the situation where their existence is in danger as they are not left with any option to run their business in the country. If this is not addressed, it might lead to the end of the voluntary development movement in the country,” he said.

Harsh Jaitli, CEO of Voluntary Action Network India (VANI), said: “This amendment has disastrous impact on voluntary organisations engaged in socio-economic development of the country.”

During the meeting, the finance minister said that the country’s development strategy would be focused on “providing good health, education and development of skills of its citizens,” according to an official statement released after the meeting.