New Delhi, Feb 25: Steel major Tata Steel managing director JJ Irani said on Sunday that the government should impose `reasonable' tariffs on items, which would be freely imported from April this year, even as it acknowledged that Chinese goods being dumped into India were cheaper and match quality of their Indian counterparts."As Mr Sinha did in the last budget, we expect that reasonable rate of tariff would be imposed on those items, which would be removed from the quantitative restriction (QR) list," said Dr Irani.
He said while the industry was in favour of frequent imposition of anti-dumping duties on Chinese goods "it cannot be denied that these goods are highly competitive in terms of low prices and reasonable quality."
On an average, Chinese goods were 40 per cent cheaper than similar ones produced in India and to face such import competition, an appropriate macro-environment had to be provided by the government, Dr Irani added.
Criticising the government for imposing taxes on the industry under the garb of rehabilitation costs of the earthquake, he said the 2 per cent levy on personal and income tax will yield a paltry Rs 1,300 crore and this comes over and above the 10 per cent surcharge imposed in the previous budget and the recent 1 per cent levy on the corporate sector.
Calling for dispensing with any additional levies in the forthcoming Budget, Dr Irani said the government should instead tap tax defaulters who owe the exchequer a stupendous Rs 62,000 crore.
(PTI)
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