The Rubber Bill, which got bounced out of Parliament since neither the senior nor junior minister was around when it was to be introduced, has to be remembered for reasons other than the fact that it plans to delicense the planting and re-planting of rubber. And that has to do with a curious section in the Bill which allows the central government to set the excise duty on rubber exports — not just for the future but for ‘natural rubber produced in India and procured for export by the exporters of natural rubber for the period from April 1 , 1961 to the August 31, 2003’.
It is not clear why the government has chosen these two dates and who is to be benefitted but the financial memorandum to the Bill says this would result in exempting a cess of Rs 16.69 crore for natural rubber produced for purposes of export in this period.
