Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Veerappa Moily has welcomed the Union Budget 2013-14.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s proposal to increase the custom duty on raw silk to 15% from existing 5% will protect the domestic sericulture industry significantly, he said in a statement.
In his statement, Moily has stated that in the recent past the sericulture industry had faced serious hardships due to the sharp decline in the prices of cocoons as well as the silk yarn.
The most important factor, which had contributed for this hardship for the sector was due to the large scale of silk imports, he pointed out.
