Dairies of Gujarat have demanded that 15 % custom duty on milk powders and 40% duty on butter oil should be restored with immediate effect. In a memorandum to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh the farmers have said that Government urgently needed to act to keep control over input prices to milk farmer and ultimately check milk prices in the country also.
It said that the developed nations like EU and USA were giving very high subsidy to their farmers and artificially reducing prices of dairy products in the world market. Such subsidized products were being dumped into developing nations. But this would adversely affect domestic market.
Referring to NDDB plans to import 10,000 MT skimmed milk powder to meet the domestic demand the farmers said that the country was soon entering into flush milk season and such announcement of import will result into substantial drop in market prices which will affect the milk farmers very badly. They said that the Government should not rush into SMP import at this juncture but review the milk scenario in March-April 2010 and import decision should be taken after reviewing the stock at that time.
The farmers have also demanded that value added tax (VAT) on all dairy products should be reduced to 4 percent from 12.5. This would increase consumer demand, boost milk products and improve rural milk producers\' income and result into overall socio-economic development in rural areas, it said.
Source : gujaratglobal.com