Regular Update
ATM News Network: The Agro Chem Federation of India (ACFI) has requested Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to provide financial incentives to private companies for research and development in collaboration with agricultural science centers along with reducing import duty on crop protection chemicals in the upcoming Union Budget.
ACFI President Parikshit Mundra said that India has not discovered any new crop protection chemical molecules during the last ten years with an expenditure of $280 million in terms of trade. Hence there is a need for adequate incentives to promote the domestic industry. India currently has no choice but to import to ensure that Indian farmers are not deprived of new technological crop protection measures.
Mundra requested the Union Finance Minister to reduce import duty on crop protection chemicals in the upcoming budget and also to provide data protection to new molecules registered in India so that farmers can avail new technologies and molecules at competitive cost.
He said the ACFI expects some announcements to be made in the budget to extend the PLI scheme to more crop protection chemical intermediates. Also, the Federation has expressed the hope that private sector companies seeking to conduct research and development in the field of agriculture in collaboration with the Center for Agricultural Sciences will receive financial incentives from the Centre. The Krishi Vigyan Kendra Yojana is 100 percent funded by the Government of India.
According to ACFI, the government should bring down the GST on crop protection chemicals to 5 per cent on fertilizers. The current 18 percent GST on chemicals is not in the interest of small and marginal farmers. Because they have to spend more money to buy crop protection chemicals. Secondly, though fertilizers and crop protection chemicals belong to the same category, different slabs of GST applicability are meaningless.
