'Apply safeguard duty to protect million of rubber growers'

Welcoming the move to formulate a National Rubber Policy, United Planters Association of Southern India (UPASI) today said the Rubber Board, comprising stakeholders representing all segments could have been the appropriate entity entrusted with formulating it.
Any policy formulated should be inclusively addressing the real concern of the sector, which comprises more than a million Natural Rubber (NR) growers, 6,000 odd Micro,Small and Medium Rubber manufacturing units and a few tyre manufacturers in the country, UPASI President, Peter Mathias said in a press release here.
The main concern for growers was the serious price crisis they were solely dependent on rubber for their livelihood, he said.

The NR prices (RSS IV) after reaching a high at Rs 243 per kg in April 2011, registered a sharp decline since then to Rs 143.50 in May last, he said, adding, if the price decline continued unabatedly, most growers would be forced to abandon cultivation and switch over to other activity.
Attributing various reasons for the decline in domestic rubber prices, including imports of NR to India, he said there was a huge surge in imports from Indonesia and Vietnam by 188.29 and 224.04 per cent, especially in 2011-12 and 2013-14.
In this context there was the need to examine the plausibility of applying a safeguard duty to protect millions of growers dependent on the sector for their livelihood, Mathias added.