The Central Government's decision to increase import duty on bamboo sticks from 10% to 25% will open up new avenues of self-employment in the country. Welcoming the decision in a statement issued today, Khadi & Village Industries Commission(KVIC) has said that, in the next 8-10 months, at least one lakh new jobs will be created in the Agarbatti industry, a major activity under the village industry sector in India, according to industry players.
KVIC said that the decision was taken by the Finance Ministry on the initiative of Union Minister for MSME, Shri Nitin Gadkari who had requested the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to increase the import duty on bamboo sticks to discourage heavy import and help local industry grow. The decision assumes great significance as heavy import of bamboo sticks from China and Vietnam caused huge employment loss in India. This decision will pave the way for setting up of new agarbatti stick manufacturing units to meet the ever-growing demand of Agarbatti in India.
At present, the KVIC said, consumption of incense sticks in India is pegged at a whopping 1490 tons per day but only 760 tons per day is locally produced. Hence, the huge gap between the demand and supply resulted in heavy import of raw agarbatti. Consequently, the import of raw agarbatti increased from just 2% in 2009 to 80% in 2019. In monetary terms, the import of raw agarbatti in India increased exponentially from Rs 31 crore in 2009 to Rs 546 crore in 2019 due to reduction of import duty in 2011 from 30 % to 10 %, it added. KVIC stated, "This hit the Indian agarbatti manufacturers hard and resulted in closure of nearly 25% of the total units".
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