Nothing wrong with import of arecanut, says traders’ body

Mangalore, April 1:  

Refuting charges of importing arecanut at zero import duty, a trade association has said that Customs duty to the tune of Rs 245 crore was paid during 2012-13.

The Kolkata-based Calcutta Kirana (Spices) Merchants’ Association was reacting, in an e-mail sent to Business Line, on a report of 50 MPs seeking ban on arecanut import.

Kamalesh Kumar Gupta, Secretary of the association, said that an estimated import duty of approximately Rs 245 crore has been paid by importers at Petrapole land customs station during 2012-13 for imports of arecanut under SAPTA (SAARC Preferential Trading Arrangement).

He said that “not a single kg of arecanut has been imported in India from Bangladesh under the SAFTA (South Asian Free Trade Area) agreement.”

In one of the press conferences in February, K. Padmanabha, President of Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative (Campco) Ltd, said that arecanut was being imported into India from Bangladesh, taking advantage of SAFTA.

On the allegations of MPs memorandum to the Union Agriculture Minister that inferior quality of arecanut was imported, Gupta said that the Centre has established the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, and has mandated it to draft rules for import of all food products.

“Authorised officers from plant quarantine, in presence of Customs officers, collect samples of the consignments of arecanut imported and send them for laboratory testing to the Central Food Laboratory and the Export Inspection Agency before clearing them for entry for consumption. Therefore, the claim of inferior quality of products flooding the markets does not stand,” he said.

On the demand MPs that minimum tariff price for import of arecanut be fixed at Rs 125 a kg, Gupta said that the cost of cultivation is a variable factor depending upon several things such as cost of land, fertilisers, labour, electricity, interest rates for loans to farmers, size of farm land, climatic conditions, the socio-economic living status of farming community, etc.

“Therefore, if the cost of cultivation of arecanut by farmers of the southern States is high as a result of culmination of these above-mentioned factors, the farming community elsewhere cannot be blamed,” he said.