CUSTOMS DUTY ON EDIBLE OILS REDUCED – BUT WHERE IS THE NOTIFICATION ?
CBEC seems to be too shy of making its notifications public. Late Friday evening, the Government issued a release :-
As part of its strategy to keep the prices of essential commodities under check, Government has moderated customs duty on edible oils in the past. In addition, the tariff values have also been kept frozen at July, 2006 levels.
Keeping in view the high prices of edible oils, Ministry of Finance, Government of India has decided to further reduce the customs duty on specified edible oils as under:
a. Crude palm oil, crude palmolein and other fractions of crude palm oil from 60% to 50%;
b. Refined Bleached Deodorized (RBD) palm oil, RBDpalmolein and other refined palm oils from 67.5% to 57.5%;
Notification No.58/2007-Customs to this effect has been issued today by the Central Board of Excise and Customs.
Reduction in customs duty will reduce the landed cost of these oils, and is expected to soften the domestic prices of edible oils. The tariff values for the palm group of oils will also continue to remain frozen at July, 2006 levels.
Why can’t the release issue the notification itself? We are ready to upload and make the notifications available free to the public within five minutes of it being given to us.