Suppliers are now offering polyester fibre at US$ 0.86-0.88 (Rs 37.30 to 38.17) per kg, down from their earlier prices of around US $0.93 per kg.

Partially oriented yarn (POY) is now being offered by foreign producers around US $1.10 - 1.15 (Rs.47.71 to 49.88) per kg, down marginally from the recent peak of about US $1.25 - 1.30 per kg.

It might be interesting to note that domestic producers are quoting on ex-factory basis about Rs 58 per kg for polyester fibre, Rs 65 for POY 126 Denier and Rs 58 for POY 235 Denier.

Traders say, bright tripodal yarn is said to be in acute short supply in the overseas markets at present. South Korea has raised its prices for such yarn to US $1.95 - 2.00 for 50 Denier, US $1.50 for 150 Denier. and US $1.50 for 150 Denier.

Meanwhile,even as the domestic texturising industry is said to be operating currently at full capacity, as many as 80 texturising units located in the Silvassa/Daman region are passing through a virtual nightmare as their normal clients are turning away from them and their business credit has come under pressure.

This is said to be the outcome of investigations launched against the units by the anti-excise evasion section of the central excise department. In July/August this year, the anti-evasion division had raided number of texturisers and had seized from them nearly 2,200 tonnes of textured polyester yarn. The authorities had claimed that duty evasion on the yarn amounted to about Rs 100 crore.

On representation to New Delhi by the industry in this regard, it was agreed that the authorities will accept as reasonable the price up to 10 per cent below that quoted by Reliance Industries for the release of seized goods.

As a result of this exercise, the authorities were able to collect about Rs 60-65 lakh. NearlyRs 43 lakh of this amount came from two spinners and the remaining Rs 20-22 lakh from nearly 35-40 units. If the idea of the authorities was just to collect the evaded duty the matter should have ended there. However, the department has subsequently launched an investigation against nearly 80 texturisers in the Silvassa/Daman region who had more than four texturising machines each.

This unending investigation is seriously affecting the business of these firms.

The industry has been suggesting that in order to avoid the need for raids, searches and lengthy investigations, the duty should be levied at specific rates, instead of an ad valorem basis. However, this is not done for unknown reasons.

The industry also suggests that the idea behind lengthy investigations is to ascertain the extent of under-invoicing. The authorities can adopt one of the three alternatives to arrive at ``notional'' prices and act on that basis. One of the ways to determine such notional value, can be the average of pricescharged by randomly selected 10 units from the Silvassa/Daman region and an equal number from the Surat region. Another alternative can be to take the average of prices charges by all spinner-texturisers. The third alternative may be to fix the notional price at 15 per cent below that quoted by major spinners. Due allowance should be made for various other parameters.

The authorities can announce such `notional' prices and enforce them so that no one would be able to declare lower prices for excise purposes.The method followed in this regard by the authorities concerned at present, smacks of persecution and does not really help either the government or the industry, it is argued.