Centre puts curbs on import of Agarbatti.

The Centre has come to the rescue of India’s domestic ‘agarbatti’ or incense stick industry by bringing in an amendment to the import policy. 

In its order dated August 31, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has amended category for raw agarbatti from ‘free’ to ‘restricted’- a move that will result in increased import duties on it. 

Huge reduction in import duty on raw agarbattis under the Indo-Asean free trade agreement since 2011, has led bamboo sticks from China and Vietnam to flood the market through the last few years. 

The decision to revise the import duty structure was taken at a high-level inter ministerial meeting that was held last week. 

ET was first to report on August 29 that there was an increasing concern in the government over huge imports of raw agarbatti from China and Vietnam impacting India’s domestic agarbatti industry and pushing it into the red. Buoyed with the government decision, Khadi & Village Industries Commission which had first red flagged the issue, is preparing to set up another 50,000 agarbatti units in the country.