Vijay Sardana, co–chairman, Agri-business Committee, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, urged the state governments to stop levying multiple taxes (including hygiene tax) on packaged food products, including poultry products, to enable India to realise the real potential of the food processing industry.
Addressing a Roundtable on Poultry Marketing under the aegis of the chamber in New Delhi, Sardana said that nowhere in the world was hygiene tax imposed on packaged food products, barring India. This was leading to health and food safety issues and preventing investments in India’s infrastructure sector.
“In case it wants the food processing industry to grow to its real potential, such illogical measures need to be shunned, especially when unpackaged food products are allowed to be sold off without any taxes,” he cautioned, pointing out that food safety could not be compromised.
“Different states levy packaged food products with different slabs of hygiene tax, ranging between 10 per cent and over 25 per cent without consulting the industry. This does not just discourage the entrepreneurs, but also disconnects them from the consumers in the value chain of the industry,” pointed out Sardana.
He prescribed a multi-pronged strategy to market poultry products, which include a suitable connect between farmers, middlemen and retailers, so that each stakeholder’s share of profit is protected in an equitable manner. A cooperative market approach was also recommended by him to sell meat and poultry products.
The participants in the seminar includes Arabind Das, chief executive officer, Godrej Tyson Foods Ltd; Dinesh T Bhosale, chairman, Compound Feed Manufacturers Association of India (CLFMA), poultry expert S A Khan and Avian Consultants’ Shashi Kapur.
David Yiend, global chief executive officer, AB Agri, and Simon, who also represented the company, shared their global experience with the Indian poultry industry, and stressed that the time had come to look at livestock issues seriously in India.
