Gifts from abroad facing Centre's ire

In a baffling move, the central government has, in a clumsy and strange manner, removed the duty exemption up to Rs 5,000 given hitherto on import by individuals of bona fide gifts (except for life-saving drugs and rakhis.
 
The Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) has, for decades, allowed import of gifts of freely importable items without any value limit. Para 2.25 of the current FTP 2015-20 has a specific provision that ‘import of gifts shall be ‘free’ where such goods are otherwise freely importable under ITC (HS).
 
In other cases, such import ‘shall be permitted against an authorisation issued