Kochi, Feb. 1 Poppy seeds (khus khus) production in major producing countries– Turkey and India – is said to witness an upsurge this year and that, in turn, is likely to push down its prices.
The Indian output is estimated to treble following increase in area under the crop in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, where the Narcotics Commissioner is said to have granted title deeds to more farmers permitting them to cultivate poppy seeds.
Thus, the total area under the crop has trebled to 12,000 hectares from normal 4,000 hectares, trade sources told Business Line. The Indian crop will start arriving in the market by March while that of Turkey in June, they said.
“If the weather remained favourable there could be a bumper crop,” they said.
The crop in Turkey is reportedly good this year. Given this scenario, there could be an oversupply pushing the prices down from Rs 450 a kg, at present, to Rs 250 a kg in June-July this year,” they said.
The Indian demand is estimated at 25,000 tonnes and almost half of this requirement is met by imports from Izmir, Turkey, they said.
The import duty on poppy seeds is levied at 47 per cent.
Invoices Manipulation
Meanwhile, some of the traders have alleged that under-invoicing is rampant in this segment besides manipulating the tariff value fixed by the concerned authorities. Such methods, they claimed, had already resulted in the State being deprived of duty revenue above Rs 300 crore.
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), which had received a complaint from a Bangalore-based trader about manipulation of tariff value – import of poppy seeds, in May last year, had forwarded it to the CVO, Department of Revenue, after duly examining it for necessary action.
They (traders) alleged that imports were under-invoiced to avoid customs duty, if the value given in the invoice is reduced by “$1,000 a tonne, the duty evaded will be $470 a tonne, which means Rs 20 a kg, so a container duty loss works to Rs 6 lakh, as for one fcl (full container load) 25 tonnes are imported, India imports 1,000-1,200 fcl a year, so the revenue loss is huge,” they claimed.
According to them “contracts are done at $3,200, where as actual price at Izmir (Turkey) is $4,500”.
Permission to import poppy seeds is issued by Narcotics Commisioner, Gwalior, and at this stage itself, the value of import needs to be checked, if found correct then only import permit be issued, they said adding or “fix import duty on kilo basis at Rs 40/kg” on similar lines of import of almonds from the US at a duty of Rs 35 a kg and this method is functioning smoothly for the past 10 years, the trade sources claimed.
Source : Business Line