Comments
The government’s decision to reduce basic customs duty on RBD palmolein with effect from December 21 may affect India’s principle of ‘Aatmanirbharta’, according to the Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA) of India.
In a notification dated December 20, the Department of Customs had reduced the customs duty on RBD palm oil and RBD palmolein from 17.5 per cent to 12.5 per cent.
With this reduction, the effective import duty will be reduced from 19.25 per cent to 13.75 per cent, including Agriculture Infrastructure and Development Cess for the above-mentioned refined oils.
Atul Chaturvedi, SEA President, said that the announcement of reducing import duty on palmolein from 19.25 per cent earlier to 13.75 per cent, without simultaneously reducing import duty on crude palm oil (CPO), has the potential to increase the imports of refined palmolein at the cost of CPO which is the raw material for the domestic refineries.
“This is contrary to our principle of ‘aatmanirbharta’, and may harm employment generation and value addition within India,” he said.
The silver lining is that this reduction has a sunset clause with March 31 as the last date, he added.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.