Budget wishlist of Dr R P Singhania

 

 

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From: Pankaj Sukhija [mailto:pankaj@profileconsulting.in]
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 4:20 PM
To: 'dmurali@thehindu.co.in'
Subject: Budget wishlist of Dr R P Singhania
Importance: High

 

Dear Mr Murali:

 

Attached is a budget wish list by Dr R P Singhania, Chairman Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association, the august body of tyre manufacturers accounting for 95 % of the industry.

 

Hope you will be able to incorporate the same in Budget Line columns. A photograph of Mr Singhania in JPEG is also attached.

 

Regards,

 

Pankaj

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Pankaj Sukhija

+91 98101 23446

 

 

For Budget Line Page Please

 

- By Dr R P Singhania, Chairman, Automotive Tyre Manufacturers’ Association

 

In a globally integrated business environment, the taxation structure needs to help Indian industry go up the value chain by encouraging the manufacture of value added products. That’s the only way to make industry competitive. Unfortunately tyre industry in India is still suffering from inverted duty structure wherein customs duty on import of Natural Rubber (principal raw material) is 20% whereas that on the finished product (tyres) is 10%. This anomaly encouraging the import of tyres rather than domestic production continues for the last several years.

 

There is urgent need to bring down the customs duty on Natural Rubber to 10 % or alternatively bringing the duty on import of tyres to 20%, at par with import of Natural Rubber.

 

In another instance of aberration, customs duty is levied even on those raw materials used by tyre industry which are not manufactured domestically and import is inevitable. This unnecessarily adds to the cost burden of the industry. There is need for waiver of Customs Duty on such raw-materials.

 

Similarly, there are a number of raw materials where domestic capacity is woefully inadequate to meet the domestic demand and again imports are a necessity. Unfortunately instead of bringing down import duty on such raw materials and facilitating their easy access to the industry, anti dumping duties have been imposed on some such raw materials creating unfavourable conditions for the industry.

 

 

A brief profile of Dr R P Singhania:

 

Dr R P Singhania is Chairman, Automotive Tyre Manufacturers’ Association and Vice Chairman & Managing Director, JK Tyre & Industries Ltd. He is also Director, JK Group