The Centre will permit imports of only 50 per cent of Turkey’s poppyseed production every year and fix a ceiling on consignments from China and the Czech Republic. Also, the Government will allow an importer to bring in only 180 tonnes or 10 container loads of poppyseeds at a time from Turkey.

These guidelines have been issued by the Department of Revenue on July 8 following an Allahabad High Court judgement on November 29, 2013 asking the Narcotics Commissioner to fix a ceiling on imports and register shipment contracts.

According to the guidelines, poppy seeds imports from Turkey will provisionally be 50 per cent of the production as conveyed by Turkish authorities. Thereafter, once the actual production figures are available from Turkey in September, the final cap will be determined by a Committee comprising the Narcotics Commissioner, representative of the DGFT and Department of Revenue.

The committee will consider the information provided by the Turkish authorities and other data on world trade made available to it. For imports from China and the Czech Republic country caps will be fixed straightaway by the Narcotics Commissioner on the basis of data supplied by those countries.

After the caps are fixed, the quantity will be apportioned to various applicants by the Narcotics Commissioner on a first-come-first-served basis till the total limit is reached However, the maximum quantity which would be registered in respect of any particular applicant, in the first instance, would be 180 tonnes or 10 container loads.

If the total quantity contained in the applications received till the time of determination of country caps is less than the limit fixed for a country, then in the second round, request of applicants who have sought to import more than 180 tonnes, will be considered. It will again be on first-come-first-served basis, but not exceeding 180 tonnes. This process will repeated until the ceiling is reached, it said. But, the restriction of quantity for registration of import contracts will not apply for imports from China and Czech Republic.

However, if there is a considerable increase in the number of applications from these countries at a later stage, then the 180 tonnes ceiling will apply for both these origins. Import contracts, registered by the Narcotics Commissioner against the ‘provisional’ country cap determined for Turkey, will be valid till October 31.

However, import contracts registered once the final limit of imports from Turkey is fixed, will be valid for three months after that. Import contracts from China and the Czech Republic will be valid for four months.

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