Govt to Impose Penalty on Extra Tobacco Cultivation

Source from:  PTI 10/22/2009

The government will impose a hefty penalty of 15 per cent of sale proceeds if farmers produce more export quality tobacco than the quota allotted to them by the Tobacco Board for the current year. The penalty was 5 per cent in 2008-09 season. But farmers exceeded the quota by about 18 per cent, tempted by almost 100 per cent increase in prices of the flue-cured variety (FCV) of tobacco, grown largely in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. "The penalty has been increased to discourage farmers from cultivating surplus FCV tobacco," Tobacco Board Chairman J Suresh Babu told PTI. India, a signatory to the World Health Organisation- sponsored Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, is under international pressure to bring down tobacco cultivation, he said. "Now, the planting of 2009-10 season (October-January) has begun in Andhra Pradesh. Enditem