India is working to eliminate tax-related hurdles that restrict the growth of the textile industry. NITI Aayog, the country’s think tank, had convened a meeting recently with industry organisations to discuss tax anomalies throughout the entire textile value chain. Representatives from industry associations such as CITI, SIMA, CMAI, PDEXCIL, TEXPROCIL, NITMA, and others attended the meeting.
The representatives raised several issues, including the import duty on cotton, the inverted duty structure in the MMF textile value chain, textile processing and job work, and the import duty on textile machinery.
There’s an industry-wide demand to increase the Basic Custom Duty (BCD) from 5% to 10% to curb the growing imports of MMF yarn. The representatives believe that it’s critical to regulate the escalating imports of apparel from countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and others. They argue that job works in the MSME sector should be exempt from the purview of GST and suggest that tax-related policies should not be changed midway through the financial year. Instead, such policies should remain consistent for the entirety of the financial year.
NITI Aayog has asked for further suggestions from the industry and assured their support for policy decisions that would benefit the textile industry as a whole.
