NEW DELHI, 28 JUNE: Groaning under the impact of the global slowdown and slump in demand, India’s handicrafts industry has sought a separate stimulus package in the forthcoming Budget to help revive the sector.
According to the chairman of the Export Promotion Council, Mr RK Malhotra, the sector is not demanding a bailout package, but asking the government to extend certain benefits which are legitimate to this industry. The demands include exemption from service tax and increase in drawback rates.
“Currently, service tax is levied on more than 100 services and exporters use quite a good number of taxable services,” Mr Malhotra said in a statement here. He said that exporters should not be required to pay service tax as the refund procedure was cumbersome. In 2008-09, handicrafts exports almost halved to $1.79 billion compared to that in the previous year, it said adding that the unabated import of copycat Chinese handicrafts in India resulted in losses of over three million jobs in the sector.
Source : The Statesman