Koyyalagudem, February 17: The tobacco growers from the northern light soil (NLS) area on Wednesday pleaded with M. Venkaiah Naidu, BJP vice-president and member of the Indian Tobacco Board, to take up the issue of increasing taxes on non-filtered cigarettes with the government during his visit here. The increasing taxes resulted in closure of the non-filtered cigarette manufacturing units and a glut in the ‘low-profile’ tobacco market, they said. Mr. Naidu came here for an interaction with tobacco growers who incurred heavy losses due to rain in December last which caused heavy damage to the crop.
Gaddamanagu Satyanarayana (Dattudu), general secretary of the Jangareddygudem Tobacco Growers Welfare Association, said the low- grade tobacco and raw material for the non-filtered cigarettes, registered a drop in the price in the high tax regime. As a result, 5-6 million kg of this particular grade remained with the farmers in the NLS area for want of buyers, he explained. Mr. Dattudu recalled that the tax on the non-filtered cigarettes, which got a great demand in the country, was increased from Rs. 60 per 1,000 units to Rs. 300 — a five-fold increase in the last decade, leaving the growers in a state of distress.
Dig at government
Mr. Venkaiah Naidu trained guns on the government for its ‘lip sympathy’ towards growers in distress caused by the natural calamities. Although the government had imposed a four-year moratorium on the bank credit obtained by the growers in the rain-hit areas, there was no relief on interest in real terms, he commented. When the banks charged 7 per cent rate of interest at the time of credit delivery, 11-14 per cent was levied on the rescheduled loans, he said while asking the government whether the measure would really provide any succour to the farmers in distress. He asked Union Minister of Commerce Ananda Sharma to keep his word with regard to utilisation of 10 per cent of the amount collected by the tobacco board from the unauthorised growers as penalty for their relief at times of distress.
The BJP senior leader expressed serious anguish over the e-auctioning, launched by the government two years ago remaining a non-starter. The growers complained that the traders were forming into a cartel while trading tobacco for want of transparency in auctioning due to the concept of e-auctioning failing to be a reality. Achanta Gopalakrishna, a grower, urged the tobacco trading companies to engage buyers who got minimum knowledge on e-auctioning at the platforms.
-Agencies