The Indian government has recently decided to allow the import of potatoes of around 10 lakh tonnes to check rising prices. Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) had released the information through a notification. Till January 31st, 2021 India would import potatoes all fresh and chilled without any license from Bhutan which was restricted till now.
“The centre is taking initiatives and active steps to moderate the rising prices of the potatoes in India by importing 30, 000 tonnes now from Bhutan without license” said Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Consumer Affairs. Applications with hard copies through mail and post have been sent by the DGFT, they had already released the procedure for import of potatoes till January 31.
As reported the import of potatoes had been in a hault till now, the Centre has reduced the import duty on potatoes from 30% to 10% now.
In order to apply for the import process the applicants who have successfully been verified according to the procedure released by the DGFT, must ensure that the import consignments should reach the ports of India on or before 31t January, 2021. There will be no request for extension of the time period entertained. Apart from this, 25, 000 tonnes of onions would be imported before Diwali, which would be an addition to the already procured 7, 000 tonnes of onions by the NAFED through private importers.
This entire import process has been announced just to check the increased pricing of the potatoes in India. Following the rules and all the regulations for the import from Bhutan would allow the smooth check on why was there a huge increase in the prices of potatoes till now. As already mentioned the same method would be applied in order to check the onions pricings in India, which all of us knows how it had reached heights nowadays. Earlier in the starting of 2020 the price of onions had also reached Rs. 120 per kg. Now these measures would help to maintain the price range of the crops in Indian market at a moderate level so that the consumers do not suffer much.
