By Avisek Nayak 

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Kolkata, 8 March 2016:   West Bengal Cashew Welfare Association(CWA) has urged Centre’s intervention to get relief from addtional import Duty on raw cashew. The Government in this year’s budget 2016 has levied additional 5 pc. custom duty on raw cashew  nut in Budget 2016 that will hit  the cashew processing industry in our country hard.

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The effective rate of duty is coming at 9.36% taking into consideration special additional duty and educational cess of 3.5%, according to the President CWA.

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“It is surprising that age-old employment generating food processing industry (cashew sector) is being targeted by the government. The cashew industry in India process more than 16 lakh metric tonnes of raw cashew nut per anum. As Indian crop is only 6 lakh MT, they are forced to import balance requirement from the overseas country, mainly African countries,” the President said.

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He further added that, the 4000 cashew processing units in 14 states of our country are in micro, small and medium scale sectors and most of them are located in rural belt. The industry is currently employing over 4 lakh women across india and another 4 lakh indirectly in the farm.

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He also said that cashew insdustry with new duty structure will lose its competitiveness to countries like Vietnam and Africa. This may result in closure of units and massive loss of employment opportunities.