The Hindu Business Line : Plea to include cashew in VKGUY

Speaking at a seminar on "Exports from coastal Karnataka: Vision 2010" here, Mr Walter D'Souza, Chairman of the Cashew Export Promotion Council of India (CEPCI), said the cashew industry was an intensively labour-oriented one providing employment to more than 10 lakh workers in the farm, factory and trading sectors throughout the country.

Labour-intensive

The scheme was introduced in the Foreign Trade Policy 2004-09 with a view to encouraging exports of agro products and promote rural employment. He said each tonne of cashew exported represents 400 mandays of work.

He said the cashew export brings in foreign exchange to the tune of Rs 2,500 core a year. Each Rs 1-crore of cashew exported represents more than 18,000 mandays of work. He suggested that cashew be considered for inclusion in VKGUY as the cashew-processing sector met the basic objective of VKGUY - rural employment and income generation.

"We understand that the main reason for denial of VKGUY benefits for cashew was that part of the cashew exported was from the imported raw cashewnuts. The new policy has the provision to clearly distinguish the products exported from domestic inputs and those containing imported inputs," he said.

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