Leading trade associations on Wednesday threatened to go on a 48-hour nationwide strike from March 31 to protest the introduction of value-added tax from the next fiscal.

Bharatiya Udyog Vyapar Mandal, an apex body of unorganised trade and SSI sector, has called the All India Trade Bandh on March 31 and April 1 and planned to hold demonstrations before Parliament on April 8 to protest the new tax regime, its senior vice president Vijay Prakash Jain said in a statement.

Traders from Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal are stated to have agreed to keep their shutters down during the bandh.

Trade bodies from other states too are likely to join in. Supporting the move, Delhi's Traders Action Committee for VAT has asked the state government to defer the new tax system by another year, its spokesperson Parveen Khandelwal said.