The Hindu Business Line : Govt scraps additional duties on cement imports

New Delhi April 3 In another bid to dampen domestic cement prices, the Government on Monday removed countervailing duty (CVD) as well as special additional duty (SAD) of customs on Portland cement (other than white cement) imports.

"Exempting Portland cement from 16 per cent countervailing duty and 4 per cent SAD is likely to make cement imports far more feasible and help ease the supply position. This we hope would help check domestic prices through increased availability," Ms Hemambika Priya, Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) spokesperson, told presspersons here today.

On the customs side, this is the second attempt by the Government to keep domestic prices of cement in check. In January, it had done away with basic customs duty on imports of Portland cements into the country. However, cement prices continued to rule high.

"Even after removing basic customs duty, we were told that it was not economically viable to import cement as countervailing duty and SAD was applicable. So we have removed them now," Ms Priya said.

Currently, cement imports into the country are "very insignificant" in both volume and value terms.

The CBEC spokesperson maintained that the latest move to remove CVD as well as SAD was "not a counter" to the domestic cement industry's reluctance to trim prices.

Concrete proposals

Asked whether the Government would rollback or modify the differential excise duty structure on cement, Ms Priya said that Government has asked cement industry to come up with concrete proposals on whether there was need to revisit the excise duty structure.

"We are waiting for the industry to revert to us with proposals. I don't want to say anything else on excise duty. Government is still open and will revisit the issue if needed," she said.

Several cement manufacturers had increased cement prices by Rs 10-12 per 50-kg bag a day after the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, announced a differential excise duty for cement on February 28 to rein in cement prices.

After sustained pressure from the Government, cement manufacturers, on March 9, agreed to the hold price line and not increase prices any further for the next one year even if input costs go up.

They, however, ruled out any rollback in the recent increase in prices until the Centre reviewed the differential excise duty imposed in the Budget.

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