The United Planters’ Association of Southern India (UPASI) has urged the Spices Board to take up with the Ministry of Food Processing Industries the need to include spices under the Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI).
Including spices in the PLI scheme would encourage value addition with the development of infrastructure for the sector.
UPASI also said there was a need to impose policy restrictions on import of natural rubber for a minimum period of two years and the government should impose safeguard duty of 70% as there was a surge in imports causing injury to domestic growers.
Natural rubber imports into India in 2018-2019 stood at 5.82 lakh tonnes which declined to 4.57 lakh tonnes in 2019-2020. During 2020-2021, imports declined by 0.47 lakh tonnes to 4.10 lakh tonnes. The import into India from April to June this year was higher by 0.32 lakh tonnes compared with the corresponding period of last year, the Association said.
On the coffee sector, the UPASI said the Coffee Board should pursue with the Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Finance to increase budgetary allocation for development activities. The developmental schemes should be made applicable to all irrespective of size of holdings or the type of ownership.
For tea, imports stood at 15.85 million kg in 2019 and 23.40 million kg in 2020. During January-June this year, imports jumped 175.73%. The domestic tea sector was witnessing increasing cost of production and any higher imports would have a telling effect on this sector, it said.
