The Hindu Business Line : Textile ind body seeks cut in duty for man-made fibre products

The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI), has asked the Finance Ministry to extend the `optional' excise duty scheme to all textile producers including the man-made fibre consuming industry. To facilitate this, it has wanted the excise duty on man-made fibre products cut from the present 8 per cent to 4 per cent at par with products from cotton.

This will enable maintaining the option of either paying the excise duty and taking the Cenvat credit on duty paid at the previous stage or not paying excise duty at all, a CITI delegation has represented to the Ministry of Finance.

The delegation led by the CITI Deputy Chairman, Mr P.D. Patodia, had suggested that the excise duty on man-made fibres and the polypropylene chips be brought down to four per cent and total removal of the import duty on polyester/viscose fibre to make imports viable.

Another plea from the apex textile body is to remove the excise and customs duty on furnace oil used by the textile industry for captive generation, which, it said, will bring about the parity in the power costs between India and those in the other competing countries.

Making specific fiscal measures to make Indian textiles globally competitive, the CITI has also favoured scaling down in the excise duty on all textile machinery from 16 per cent to eight per cent and the customs duty to five per cent which will assist the domestic machinery industry in capacity building and also smooth sourcing of machinery from international suppliers.

Among the other fiscal sops sought are exemption from service tax for all export activities, removal of the textiles committee cess and lowering of the central sales tax to two per cent immediately.

The CITI delegation comprising its past Chairmen, Mr Rajaram Jaipuria, and Mr V.K. Ladia, wanted the Government to extend the TUFS up to the 11th plan and make available sufficient funds for the scheme.

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