CMAI for roll back of excise duty on RMG

10 Mar '16

2 min read

The Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI) has reiterated its opposition to the Budget proposal to levy excise duty on branded readymade garments.

It has urged the government to roll back the proposed excise duty and instead, continue with the optional duty regime.

In his Budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had proposed 2 per cent excise duty on branded readymade garments and made-up articles of textiles of retail sale price of Rs 1,000 and above.

"The Finance Minister should withdraw excise duty on branded readymade garments and continue with the optional duty regime that applies currently, until GST is introduced.

"Once GST is introduced, the whole value chain will be covered by duty and traceability as well as compliance will improve tremendously and implementation problems will also ease considerably," CMAI President Rahul Mehta said at a seminar in Mumbai on Tuesday.

Mehta further said that the "task of collecting excise duty from the highly dispersed and mostly tiny units in the garment sector would be a formidable one for the government".

The introduction of the Rs 1,000 cut-off price point for the applicability of excise duty will further complicate the process, he said.

Mehta had earlier described the proposed excise duty as 'disastrous' given that the textile industry was passing through a rough phase. (SH)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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