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Custom Duty On Sugar And Transporters’ Cartels
Custom Duty On Sugar And Transporters’ Cartels
Siddhi B Ranjitkar
April 18, 2018
Kathmandu: The news in “gorkhapatra” of April 18, 2018 has it that the government has increased the custom duty on the imported sugar from 15 percent to 30 percent to ease the national sugar producers’ problem of selling the sugar because of the low price of the imported sugar they have been facing.
The additional tax on the imported sugar increases the price of sugar, and the national sugar producers could sell the sugar with profits. That is great for the national sugar industry and the sugarcane farmers. It will keep the jobs at the sugar industry and the farmers at work. It will surely help to grow economy, as the State revenue will grow; hopefully, the State will use it for the economic growth.
However, the adverse effect of the rise in the tax on the imported sugar is the higher price the consumers have to pay for sugar. Other sugar-based industries such as confectionary, sweets, soft drinks and so on will suffer from the high price of the sugar. They will need to increase the prices of their products, too. Thus, the consumers will suffer from the multiple price rises of various sugar-based products, too.
The government could follow another path to make the national sugar industry work efficiently and better and make it competitive, and the sugarcane farmers work better providing the sugar industry with the incentive to improve their performances, make them efficient, and competitive, and the sugarcane farmers with the better technology and high yielding sugarcane.
Consequently, the sugar industry would grow and would be able to compete with the world sugar prices. The farmers would have higher incomes. Both the industry and farmers would contribute to the two-digit economic growth. Consumers and sugar-based industries would not need to pay high prices for sugar. Everybody would benefit. Only the government might need to pay a little amount for providing incentives to the national sugar industry and the sugarcane farmers.
The news in “gorkhapatra” of April 18, 2018 has it that the cabinet meeting held in the evening of April 17, 2018 decided to rescind the registration and renewable of the transporters’ organizations done at the district administration; from now on, they have to register such organizations at the Company Registrar Office or at the concerned ministry for permits; it has been done to break up the transporters’ syndicates to make the transporters compete for better services at reasonable prices; it is also to counter the threats of the transporters’ syndicate to protest and stop the public transport across the country.
The government’s bold actions against the transporters’ syndicates will contribute to the economic growth, as the transporters’ syndicates have been the nuisances because they have been adversely affecting the transport economy because of the transport monopoly they have enjoyed. Monopoly on anything is corruption. The Supreme Court has ordered to annul the transporters’ syndicates in its ruling in 2012, the news in “gorkhapatra” of April 18, 2018 stated.
They have been running the public transport services in their interest disregarding the national and commuters’ interest and benefits. They force the government to set high bus fares; most of the time, the syndicates allowed the bus operators to set high bus fares than the government has set.
The truck transporters also have been negatively affecting the national economy, as they did not allow others other than the members of the syndicates to operate trucks for goods transport, and they have the monopoly on setting the prices for the truck transport. Businesspeople have been complaining of the truck transporters’ syndicate for the high prices they have been charging for the transport of goods.
