Tobacco Farmers Want Ban on Imported Cigarettes

Source from:  123bharath.com (in) 12/20/2004

Tobacco growers are demanding that the government restrict cigarette imports in order to safeguard the interest of lakhs of farmers and farm workers. "Cigarettes be placed on the restricted list of imports and customs duty be increased from the existing level of 30 per cent to the bound rate of 150 per cent," Federation of Cigarette Tobacco Growers Association said in its pre-Budget memorandum. It favoured retaining the current specific duty structure for the cigarette industry. A total of 1.3 lakh farmers and 30 lakh farm workers in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka produce nearly 220 million kg of cigarette tobaccos. As per the industry estimates, cigarette tobacco industry contributes Rs 1,200 crore of foreign exchange through exports and Rs 7,000 crore as excise duty. "High dose of domestic taxation has led to uncontrolled and increasing inflow of contraband cigarettes from across the borders," it said. Taxation on cigarettes, on an average, is 38 times higher than on other tobacco products, it said. The federation demanded that Sulphate of Potash be supplied at subsidised rate as in the case of other fertilisers. Every year 50,000 tonne of SOP is being imported for crops such as grapes and tobacco. As domestic price of SOP is very high, subsidy needs to be extended at par with other fertilisers, it added. It also sought increasing subsidy on drip-irrigation to 75 per cent per hectare from current 50 per cent level. Enditem