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Timber trade wants inspection fee lowered

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, June 4

THE Rs. 2,000-crore indigenous timber industry is in dire trouble, following a recent notification by the Union Ministry of Agriculture steeply enhancing the inspection fee payable under the provisions of the Plants, Fruits and Seeds (Regulation of Impor ts into India) Amendment Order.

In a memorandum to the Union Agriculture Ministry which is looking after the quarantine inspection part of imported plants, fruits and seeds, the Timber Importers' Association of India, representing the timber trade from all over the country, said as a result of the steep hike in inspection fee from the extant Rs. 40 per tonne to Rs. 600 per tonne effective from May 16, 2000, the Government had inflicted a hard blow on an industry which had been depending solely on imported timber as an abundant measur e of safety of native forest and the need to preserve the ecological balance of the country.

Addressing a news conference here, the spokespersons of the association, Mr. Ashok Agicha and Mr. S. Darvesh, recalled that the Union Government put the import of wood/timber in the early 1980s under the OGL (Open General Licence) with a view to conserv ing indigenous forests which needed time for regeneration from past indiscriminate over-exploitation.

They said this was done at a time when the country's forex position was none too comfortable since the idea was to keep the imported timber priced slightly lower or at least on par with domestic timber so that there was no inducement for illicit felling of trees. The import duty on timber today stands at five per cent.

They said the Agriculture Ministry knew too well that timber was a dead plant and had only industrial uses such as in the construction industry and manufacture of furniture and the import was not for propagation or regeneration or any other direct consum ption. As such, timber need not be part of the P.S.F. Order 1989 at all.

What was to be noted, they said, was that the 1992 Notification issued by the Ministry allowed import of timber without Phytosanitary Certificate and import permit required under the P.F.S.Order 1989. Originally, timber-logs were not covered under the pu rview and definition of plant. But, the Directorate of Plant Protection and Quarantine and Storage got this altered so as to include the ``dead trees'' under plant for the purpose of levying inspection charges.

Besides, timber cannot be imported in kilograms as it is always a bulky cargo and one log could be two to three tonnes. Whereas inspection charges referred to kg in the P.S.F. Order and in subsequent amendments, it was quite clear that timber was not inc luded in the P.F.S. Order for the collection of inspection fee initially, they contended.

They said the P.F.S. Order was meant to be a service charge for quarantine and fumigation of the imported cargo lest some infected timber enter into the country. But from the past imports, it could be ascertained that there was no consignment which was f ound to be infected with exotic species of insects and was subjected to treatment before release. On the other hand, they said, no importer could afford to import infected timber since it would have a value of fuel wood only.

As the timber industry was contributing to ecological balance by importing timber instead of using domestic forests, the charge levied for inspection, quarantine or fumigation should not be exorbitant and the State could waive these fees in the public in terest.

However, the authorities had gone to the extreme of charging 15 times higher inspection fee than was prevalent. As the industry has been importing timber of the order of Rs. 1,200 to Rs. 1,300 crore per annum, the recent hike alone would entail Rs. 100 c rores which would drive the industry to extinction.

They said the country was importing two million tonnes of timber per annum from New Zealand, Alaska, Ecuador and Myanmar and because of the latest steep impost of inspection fee as many as 16 ships were stranded on the high seas as the importers were not able to shell out exorbitant inspection fee in places such as Kandla, Mumbai, Chennai, Calcutta and Mangalore. Unless the new notification was scrapped, the domestic timber trade would be forced to bankruptcy, they said.