Cigarette Smuggling

Officers of Delhi Customs (Preventive) have searched and recovered over 5.48 lakh foreign-origin cigarette sticks worth Rs 55.23 lakh, which did not have the mandatory pictorial health warning on the packets, the finance ministry said on Friday. It is suspected that these cigarettes were imported illegally/smuggled into the country, evading customs duty and also violating the 'Cigarettes & other Tobacco Products (Packaging & labelling) Amendment Rules, 2022' and being supplied in the domestic market. "Based on an intelligence, the officers of Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate Delhi, searched and recovered 5,48,800 lakh cigarette sticks of foreign origin worth around Rs 55.23 lakh, yesterday," the ministry said in a statement. The cigarettes of different brands, including Platinum Seven, Davidoff, Dunhill and Mond, have been recovered, it said, adding the recovered cigarettes do not have mandatory pictorial health warnings on the packets. During the investigation, one ...

Farmers' body FAIFA on Wednesday requested the government to take measures to curb cigarette smuggling, causing a revenue loss of Rs 13,000 crore annually to the exchequer. Federation of All India Farmer Associations (FAIFA) in a pre-budget presentation to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman highlighted the growing menace of cigarette smuggling, resulting in various issues -- ranging from the rise of crime to huge tax losses to the government. The association -- representing millions of farmers and farmworkers of commercial crops across Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka -- urged the government to consider lowering taxes to arrest cigarette smuggling, FAIFA said in a statement. Quoting news reports, it said, the government is planning to cut import duty on gold from the current 18.45 per cent to about 12 per cent to make the yellow metal cheaper and curb its smuggling. Similarly, the government is also looking at reducing the basic customs duty (BCD) on phones to make

FAIFA said a steep increase in excise duty has led to growth of smuggling of cigarettes in India