Finance minister Yashwant Sinha yesterday proposed a hike in customs duties on select items after these items were brought under the open general licence of import following the recent lifting of quantitative restrictions.
Sinha proposed to increase the import duty on tea and coffee to 35 per cent, up from 15 per cent earlier.
The basic customs duty on poultry meat and their preparations have been hiked from 35 per cent to 100 per cent. Officials revealed that this was done in light of the Sri Lankan experience, where the domestic industry was ravaged in the wake of low import duty barriers.
He has also proposed a 16 per cent hike in additional duty of customs on marble slabs and tiles to provide the domestic manufacturers a level-playing field.
Also, to ensure parity for domestic manufacturers of non-coking coal, Sinha increased the import duty to 25 per cent from 15 per cent.
