Agarbatti declared handicraft product

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SME Times News Bureau | 03 Dec, 2009
In the new duty drawback rates, the government has declared 'Agarbatti' as a handicraft product and brought the same under the jurisdiction of the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH) from CHEMEXCIL.

Raj Kumar Malhotra, Chairman, EPCH, said, "It was a long pending demand of Agarbatti exporters, since Agarbatti as handicrafts product has synergy with products like gifts, decoratives, housewares and other handicrafts. It has been a welcome relief to all Agarbatti exporters and this step of the Government will not only boost exports of handicrafts but will also bring additional orders of worth over Rs 500 crore for the sector."

Malhotra further said that representations made by the Council have now started bearing fruits as after the incentives offered under FTP 2009-14, the Government declared Agarbatti as handicraft product and also shifted it from CHEMEXCIL to EPCH.

He added that EPCH also expressed satisfaction over the recently announced duty draw back rates. The department of revenue has not changed the existing drawback rates and caps. The drawback schedule which was notified on August 29, 2008 as amended shall continue to be in operation until a revised schedule is notified.

As per the new notification, new entries like bells, gongs, statuettes, ornaments, picture frames, etc. of aluminium and iron and steel, jars, perfume bottles, candle plate/ coasters, votive, lotion bottle/ soap dish, ornamental spheres/ stars/ bells made of glass, lanterns/ lamps predominately of glass have been added and the drawback rates are kept same as are presently applicable to art-ware/ handicraft items made of the respective constituent material. The new entries have been created with a view to minimize disputes in classification of art-ware/ handicraft items.

Rakesh Kumar, Executive Director of the Council, said, "the continuation of existing drawback rates and the new entries added in the drawback schedule has come at a very important time and would certainly increase the confidence of handicrafts exporters and strengthen their belief which may help them enhance handicrafts exports."

The handicrafts sector has been one of the worst effected sectors in the recent global economic slowdown registering a negative growth of around 50% during 2008-09 and now the situation seems to be improving gradually.