March 22: Around 6,000 tonnes of `Sundari' chillies cultivated in the South 24-Parganas district (adjoining the Sundarban forests) of West Bengal are illegally transported to Bangladesh, according to the Chillies Aratdar Association, Calcutta, an organisation of commission agents for chilli in the state.Twenty per cent of the Sundari crop normally passes into Bangladesh through Bongaon, Hingalganj and Jalangi on the border as well as through the Tripura-Bangladesh border.
According to Ashok Kar, secretary of the association, "Most of the produce, worth Rs 80 crore, is being illegally transferred to different states as well as Bangladesh. Only about five per cent of the produce is sold legally paying the sales tax of the state."
The commission agents are dealers registered under the Sales Tax Act who operate on a commission basis between the buyer and the seller.
Bumper crops of this variety of chilli in the last five years have eroded Calcutta's position as the regional centre for the distributionof chillies in the whole of eastern India. Till the early nineties, around 15,000 tonnes of red chillies used to come to Calcutta every year from Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Bihar. At present only chillies from Guntur in Andhra Pradesh come to Calcutta.
In the eighties, the production of Sundari was around 10 per cent of the present production. An estimated 32,000 tonnes of Sundari chillies are produced in the region. The main growing region are Kakdwip, Canning, Basanti and Beldanga. The quality of the crop at Beldanga is comparable to that of the Guntur chilli of Andhra Pradesh and was cultivated with seeds from Guntur, according to Kar.
Around 30 per cent of the Sundari crop of chillies is purchased by buyers in Bihar around Patna. Another 15 per cent goes to Tripura by road, a portion of which again enters Bangladesh illegally. "About 30 per cent of the chillies are consumed within the state and even that portion avoids the normal route of the commissioned agents and is soldthrough the Calcutta markets illegally," alleges Kar.
Strangely, all the chilli that goes out of the state has to pass through Calcutta. According to Kar, the Sundari chillies are regularly transhipped through Calcutta, at the Adyashraddha Ghat in Postabazar, every morning to different parts of India.
"The sales tax authorities of the state have refused to book the lorries which come in without the required form 89-2A even after repeated complaints by the association," says Kar.
The chillies are auctioned at Kakdwip and are bought by touts from the farmers. No sales tax is imposed at this stage. The chilli is often sold to the buyers directly from Kakdwip, avoiding the commission agents and, in the process, the sales tax of the state. For local consumption, chillies are sold from two markets in Calcutta, avoiding the commissioned agents. The picking season is from March to November every year.
The rate for the Sundari chillies at the moment is Rs 25 per kg. The total quantum of sales taxavailable to ths state at the rate of 13.8 per cent for 32,000 tonnes should come to Rs 11 crore, but this is apparently escaping tax net of the state.
"On the other hand, due to the decrease in incoming chillies from other states through commission agents, the sales tax earned by the state from outstation chillies has gone down by 50 per cent," says Kar.
"Personally, I am depositing only 40 per cent of what I used to pay as sales tax in the early nineties," said Kar.
The Aratdar Association is affiliated to the Federation of West Bengal Trade Associations. Mahesh Singhania, chairman of the publicity committee of the Association, said "It is amazing how the West Bengal government has let this illegal trade flourish and has not reaped the benefit of a buoyant performance by farmers."
"We feel political pressure is stopping the government from acting, while almost Rs 50 crore worth of chilli moves out of the state under their nose without paying any kind of taxes. The lobby of touts which operatesfrom Kakdwip and the truckers at the Adyashraddha Ghat at Calcutta seems to have an amazing hold over the government," Singhania added.
"As a sign of protest, commissioned agents might surrender their licences by May 1998," added Kar.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
