Govt endorses 12 private firms to import 27,000 tonnes of rice

The Ministry of Food has endorsed 12 more private companies to import some 27,000 tonnes of rice, an official said.

Of this, boiled rice comprises 12,000 tonnes while the rest will be non-boiled ones.

The food ministry recently sent a letter to the senior secretary of the commerce ministry, Tapan Kanti Ghosh in this regard.

In the memo, the food ministry directed the respective importers to market the entire amount of rice across the country by December 31.

Upon importation, its storage and marketing information should be conveyed to the concerned District Food Controllers. Imported rice cannot be repackaged in the name of the proprietary organisation and rice must be sold in imported sacks.

The rice may have a maximum of 5 percent broken grains.

Meanwhile, import duty on rice has been withdrawn completely from the previous 25 percent. The National Board of Revenue (NBR) issued a ‘no-duty’ notification on June 23 after the government made the decision to keep the rice market stable.

Besides, the regulatory duty has been brought down from 25 to 10 percent. As a result, the total duty on rice import has fallen from 62 percent to 25 percent, respectively.

The new duty exemption was made valid till October 31. The NBR has added conditions for importers to obtain permission from the Food Ministry to get approval for this duty exemption.

Then on August 28, the government reduced another 10 percent import duty on the import of rice. Now the traders have to pay a little more than 15 percent import duty. Importers can import rice on payment of only 5 percent regulatory duty along with 5 percent advance tax and 5 percent advance income tax, respectively.