Sandal exporters boycott auctions, flay policy
OUR BUREAU
CHENNAI, Dec 29: Peeved at the policy and procedures adopted by the Tamil Nadu government for auctioning sandalwood, exporters of the valued commodity did not participate in the bidding here on Wednesday.Later, addressing a press meet, Gurdeep Singh Chawla, president of the Indian Sandalwood Exporters Association charged the state government with slamming doors on them with its ``irrational, illogical bidding system''. Lamenting that the tough auction conditions would only encourage sandalwood smuggling and put an end to legal trade, he doubted whether the Tamil Nadu government really had 17,000 tonnes of the valuable foreign exchange earner as it claims. Or was it trying to cover up the losses, estimated at Rs 100 crore, following a fire at Tirupattur sandalwood godown on March 17, 1997, he wondered. Besides stringent auction sale conditions, exporters were also subjected to harrassment by the district forest officers (DFOs), ``who after accepting full payment from the merchants forced them to lift
the half-cleaned and sometimes mud-filled sandalwood,'' Chawla said. He also questioned the state government's motive behind screening a video tape of the stocks at the auction in Chennai. Previously, the auction was conducted at the sandalwood godowns in Sathyamangalam, Tirupattur and Salem and the merchants were allowed to inspect the stocks in person. Such a move, he added, raised questions about the stock availability in the state. Moreover, there also appears to be a deliberate attempt to block the stocks from coming to the market becuase the moment stocks are lifted the exact stock position would be known, Chawla said. According to exporters, the Tamil Nadu government only realised around Rs 86 lakh from the sale of 20 tonne at Wednesday's auction. The state government had decided to auction 1000 tonnes of sandalwood worth about Rs 55 crore. India, according to honorary secretary of South India Sandalwood Products Dealers and Exporters Association M M Gupta, was losing foriegn exchange to
Indonesia and Australia. International demand for Indian sandalwood, he said, was 2000 tonnes in 1996, whereas exports in the current fiscal was only 400 tonnes. The central government has already earmarked 1200 tonnes for exports this year. The exporters also opposed the state government's decision to increase initial money deposit from Rs 15 lakh to 20 per cent of the stock, raising the demurrage from Rs 30 per metric tonne per day to Rs 600 per metric tonne daily. The godown rent has also been raised from Rs 8 per day per tonne to Rs 200 per tonne daily and the time for the mode of payment reduced,Gupta added.
Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
|
