Maran announces slew of steps for rubber growers

Our Economic Bureau

Commerce and industry minister Murasoli Maran

New Delhi, Dec 10: Commerce and industry minister Murasoli Maran announced on Monday a slew of WTO-consistent measures to safeguard the interests of rubber growers by making it mandatory for imported rubber to conform to the Bureau of Indian Standards and for registration of importers with the rubber board.

The steps also include designating Kolkata and Vizag ports for handling rubber imports in order to ensure monitoring of transactions on expeditious lines between the customs and the directorate-general of commercial intelligence and statistics, Kolkata, an official release said.

The release further said registration of rubber importers with the rubber board is consistent with the present arrangement under which all the rubber goods manufacturers as well as dealers have to register themselves with the board as provided under the Rubber Act (Section 14). This will help the board monitor imports and assess the raw material requirements of the industry in the wake of removal of quantitative restrictions in terms of grade, varieties etc.

Conformity with the BIS standards has already been made compulsory for domestic rubber and every processor shall grade and market rubber products in conformity with such standards. If the domestic rubber producer fails to comply with the standards, the board has powers to cancel the licence and recommend withdrawal of the BIS certification, it clarified. After the removal of QRs from April 1, the government had decided to make an exception in the case of rubber by banning duty-free import of this input for advance licence-holders with export commitments. They have been given the option to import rubber as DEPB (duty entitlement passbook scheme) holders.

Again, in order to encourage a direct nexus between the growers and the user industry, the government has decided to give handling charges at Rs 0.75 per kg to primary grower societies so that they could procure rubber at the notified minimum price from the growers and make it available at that price to the user industry. The state governments had already brought down the purchase tax from 11 to 6 per cent on transactions conducted through Kerala state rubber cooperative marketing federation and rubber board promoted companies.

The government has decided to provide financial incentive at the rate of Rs 3.50 a kg for export of rubber to any destination in the world. The incentive would cover aspects relating to quality upgradation, packing and internal transportation.