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expertise to give a tough competition to the Indian bamboo
industry not just in the International market but on Indian
turf as well, which is making life miserable for Indian entrepreneurs,
the FOBIA informed the Additional Secretary, Government of
India, NBM through a memorandum.
Putting forth the problem of the indigenous
bamboo entrepreneurs, the organization said that good quality
bamboo processing machines are not available in India and
if the businessmen import machines with full duty payment,
the project would not be viable for them.
We
strongly feel that export commitment under the Export Promotion
Capital Goods Scheme (EPCG) for bamboo sector should be waived
for the bamboo units. Without this waiver, the survival of
these units would be impossible, the FOBIA mentioned.
According
to it even if the total export obligation of existing bamboo
units is waived, the loss of government exchequer in terms
of custom duty would be around 2-3 crore, which is negligible
considering the amount spent by the Union government through
NBM and National Mission on Bamboo Application (NMBA).
The
organization also suggested that custom duty on import of
machines, spares and consumables for bamboo processing units
should be waived for at least 10 years.
The
memorandum was submitted by Rajib Goswami and Gautam Kothari
of FOBIA after a review meet with the representatives of the
bamboo based industries in the NE Region called by the NBM
to take stock of availability and future demand of bamboo
as a raw material and discuss the innovative use of bamboo
in various products including handicrafts, furniture, incense-sticks,
industry products, etc.#
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