For a State that manufactures 65% of the country’s total production of 25,000 tonnes of nylon fishing nets per annum, the imposition of Goods and Services Tax of 12% spells big trouble, say fishers.
“Now, the country is confronted with the infiltration of Chinese nets in the market. The Chinese nets are priced less than the price of our raw material. We are getting around 250 tonnes of Chinese nets a month, which is 40% of our internal consumption of mono-filament nets. This is a major threat to the industry and is putting pressure on local manufacturers. We are demanding anti-dumping measures to safeguard our interests,” said M. Shafiullah, honorary secretary, Indian Fishnet Manufacturers Association.
Of the total 550 net manufacturing units in the country, Tamil Nadu has around 300-350 units and many of these are in Nagercoil. Suresh Radhakrishnan, Indonets, Nagercoil, said that smaller manufacturers have been badly affected by GST since the business was credit-based and whether they got paid or not, they had to pay taxes. “Only those with a working capital can survive in this scenario, whether dealers pay or not,” he said.
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An industry expert said that, ideally, fishing nets must not be taxed, since in the previous VAT and Excise regime, they were not taxed. “The State government too had granted exemption. Fishing nets don’t fit in the GST framework, and the Centre should roll back the tax,” Mr. Radhakrishnan said.