Export curbs on farm products lifted

 The measures include removal of registration and packaging requirements, compensation for the cost of transporting agricultural commodities to the ports and a special 3 per cent duty entitlement pass book (DEPB) rate for primary and processed foods exported in retail packaging of 1 kg or less. Besides, 20 agri-export zones have been notified for encouraging the export of specific horticultural products from the regions where they are produced.

 Taking forward the recent move of lifting quantitative and packaging curbs on fine and coarse cereals, their products, pulses and butter, the new policy has lifted restrictions on the export of all cultivated varieties of seeds. The only commodities left out of the freely exportable basket are jute and onion. Their exports would be canalised through state trading enterprises.

 The registration and packaging requirements have also been removed from wheat and its products, butter, coarse grain, groundnut oil and cashew to be exported to Russia under the rupee debt repayment scheme.

 Describing the