Lowering of import duty of natural rubber (NR), currently at 25% or Rs 30 whichever is lower, would be detrimental to the interest of 13.1 lakh growers and 4.93 lakh workers dependent on this sector,United Planters’ Association of Southern India (Upasi) , an apex body of planters, said on Tuesday.
Upasi said there should not be any tweaking with the import duty and importantly, it was a question of livelihood of rubber growers and workers vis-à-vis profit margins of a few in the consuming sector.
Natural rubber (dry form) was the only plantation commodity wherein the bound rate was fixed at a very low level of 25%. The base duty of dry forms of NR in the base year 1986 under WTO framework was 85% (above the threshold level of 40 %) and hence should have been bound at 40% according to the norms, President AE Joseph said. “The fixation of lower bound rates for the dominant dry forms of NR, thus, was not only regressive but also an explicit violation of the standard norms fixed by the GoI. That be as it may, there is no reason whatsoever to reduce the import duty especially given the surge in imports of natural rubber into India during last few years, with each year reporting new highs.”
The import of NR in 2008-09 was 77,762 tonne which had increased manifold and reached 5,82,351 tonne in 2018-19. The increased imports of NR and thereby un-remunerative prices resulted in producers not tapping resulting in drop in production.
Joseph said the situation, if allowed to continue, would make India fully-dependent on foreign countries for this strategic raw material. Thus, it was absolutely essential to levy safeguard duty on NR to protect the livelihood of small producers and national interest of the country by maintaining its NR production capacity intact and thereby reducing the foreign exchange outgo, he added.
Upasi also said any attempt to disturb the import duty structure would be counter-productive in augmenting the domestic production. The case in point is the drastic decline in the production from 9.13 lakh tonne in 2012-13 to 5.62 lakh tonne in 2015-16.
“From these levels, the current year’s production rose to 6.48 lakh tonne in 2018-19 and it is anticipated to further improve to 7.50 lakh tonne in 2019-20. There is a need to increase the NR production further and efforts towards this should be given priority,” UPASI source said.
Source: financialexpress.com