The government is going to impose five percent duty again on importing onion from India. Commerce ministry will send a proposal to the National Board of Revenue (NBR) in this regard soon.
Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi unveiled the matter while talking to journalists at a press briefing held at the secretariat in the capital on Sunday.
The minister said, “We will make a proposal to the NBR and they will decide what to do. We will also talk to the officials of the Ministry of Agriculture. If they think that the duty can be imposed for the betterment of the country’s farmer, then it will be finalised.”
It is to be noted, when India stopped exporting onions in March last year, the country faced onion crisis. Then the government released five percent duty on onion to make import easy from other countries.
The minister said, “Our farmers should not be harmed under any circumstances. We must support them. We will think first about our onion growers and consumers.”
“At the time when India stopped exporting onions, we imported onions from Turkey, Egypt, China and many other countries. At that time five per cent duty was lifted to make onions available at an affordable price. Now at present if we impose five percent duty on import onion form India, earlier who have open LCs to import onion from other countries will out of the new duty. However, we aim to ensure that our farmers are not harmed,” Tipu Munshi said.
“Onion price normally goes high in September, October, and November in our country. In the coming days, we have to come out of the problem. Arranging onion seeds which are produced in June-July and increasing onion warehouse capacities are the key ways to get rid of the jeopardy,” added Tipu Munshi.