NEW DELHI (Commoditiescontrol) – Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis has urged the Centre to increase import duty on tur from 10 percent to 25 percent as a measure to improve its market prices by restricting supplies from overseas in the interest of the farmers, as the state is a key grower of tur in India.
Ironically, it doesn’t appear that any hike in import duty will help tur prices to revive in the domestic market as 10 percent duty applicable presently remained ineffective in restricting imports because tur is mostly imported by India from Myanmar and East African countries and import duty is not levied on the commodities sources from these destinations.
In fact, India has a duty free agreement with ASEAN countries where import duty is not applicable as per the experts who told Commoditiescontrol on anonymity. Similar agreement also exists with least developed countries (LDC) as Mozambique, Malavi, Tanzania and Sudan are the nations that belong to this group.
The importers who have recently received the consignments of tur from Myanmar, an ASEAN nations, delivered at Mumbai Ports clarified that they were not charged any duty on imports of tur.
Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadanvis recently met Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and asked him for increasing import duty on tur from 10% to 25% so that stability in the prices would be maintained in the market. Actually, tur prices are ruling much below the Minimum Support Price (MSP) fixed by the Centre at Rs. 5,050/100kg for the kharif Marketing season 2016-17.
In a move to hold the falling prices of tur in the domestic market, the central government imposed 10 percent duty on tur along with wheat March 28, 2017 with immediate effect. Initially, prices of tur moved up slightly in the domestic market but slipped later. Since then prices have fallen more than 10 percent in the most of the tur growing belts in India as duty is not applicable on imports of tur from Myanmar and East African Countries from where Indian buyers are sourcing raw tur.
Tur prices remained skyrocketing in past years due to low production in the country as back-to-back two consecutive droughts affected farming. Tur dal prices were seen nearly Rs. 200/100kg from October 2015-June 2016 in the domestic market which encouraged the farmers to grow more pulse seeds as monsoon also remained favorable last year and production rose sharply by 65 percent from 25.6 lakh tonnes in 2015-16 to 42.3 lakh tonnes in 2016-17, as per the second advance estimates released in February.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi led BJP government at centre is committed to double the income of the farmers by 2022, the policy makers are exploring all those avenues which would help farmers. Checking imports is also one of the decisions taken by the Centre in the interest of the farmers.
However, 10 percent import duty on tur remained ineffective in checking its supplies from overseas origin. Now, our question is will any further rise in duty will help improve stability in the market prices of tur by curbing supplies from foreign sources?
If not, then what is the need of imposing duty on imports of tur?
Traders are also in favour of bringing stability in tur prices and they have to say that instead of raising import duty, the government should allow exports of processed pulses and lift the ban on stock limits wherever applicable till date as some states have already removed stock limits.
Pradeep Jindal, a trader in Delhi said stock limits were the measures to check hoarding when there was acute shortage of stocks but plentiful domestic supplies are seen now, hence, lifting ban on stock limits will help in improving buying activities and thereby attaining stability in prices.
(By Commoditiescontrol Bureau; +91-22-40015533)
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