Small and medium importers have urged the Union Government to permit them to import poppy seeds under open general licence (OGL) without obtaining permits from the Narcotics Control Board (NCB), which they allege, is time consuming besides depriving them of timely business.
Poppy seeds are imported free under OGL, from a list of 13 countries which grow it legally as per the INCB rules and approved by the International Narcotic Control Bureau, (INCB), Vienna (Austria), according to official sources.
However, some of the importers told Business Line that "presently we must apply to get import permit, this man-made procedure leads to inordinate delays, monopoly, black marketing etc."
This, they alleged, "is stopping legal trade and it must be freely allowed from specified legally growing countries, as it will help the trade to grow besides allowing competition, helping consumers get the cargo at lower prices." Free imports will help the prices of poppy seeds to fall from Rs 290 to Rs 175 a kg.
A Bangalore-based trader said: "We have offers from Spain to import poppy seeds, but NCB is not allowing, there is no reason, when Spain is a legal grower, this is nothing but to help big importers from Turkey."
Import duty
Import duty at present is at 25 per cent. Besides , tariff value is fixed by the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) of Union Finance Ministry every fortnight. The latest value fixed for poppy seeds vide Notification No.122/2009 - Customs dated August 13 is $2,830 a tonne. This value has been fixed "when we got offers from Spain at $2,000 a tonne. At the same time prices are lower in Czech. Today, blue poppy seeds price in Czech is $1200."
Given this situation how and at what rate the duty will be charged, they asked. A permanent solution to this problem, they claimed, is to fix kilo duty at Rs 30 a kg on imports from any country.
DGFT policy
Import as per the DGFT policy is free under OGL from 13 countries listed in Customs Tariff Book, Chapter 12, viz., China, Holland, Czech, Slovakia, Austria, Australia, Turkey, Spain, Poland etc.
According to the trading sources, Turkey's monopoly has been broken when "we started importing from other origins. Free imports from all the origins will bring down prices of poppy seeds from Rs 290 to Rs 220 and by October, it will drop further to Rs 175 a kg," they claimed.
This will help our consumers, who are paying high prices, as poppy seed is an essential food ingredient used daily in all masalas, food items, chutney preparations, they added.
Source : Business Line