In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, West Bengal Prime Minister Mamta Banerjee asked him for exemption from the customs duty on the rice variety ‘Govindobhog’.
Kolkata,UPDATED: November 3, 2022 01:55 AM IST
The Prime Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee. (File photo)
By Anupam MishraThe Prime Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday urging him to be granted an exemption from the customs levied on the popular variety of rice known as ‘Govindobhog’. She asked the Prime Minister to consider her request, as Basmati rice is exempt from customs duties.
In her letter, Mamata stated that Govindobhog rice is extremely popular and that it is specially offered as prasad on auspicious occasions. She went on to say that it also received a Geographical Identification Label in 2017 and that the Gulf States are in high demand for the rice variety.
“Unfortunately, the Indian government has imposed a 20 percent customs duty on rice, which has severely affected the export of the premium ‘Gobindobhog’ variety, negatively impacting the demand and domestic price of the paddy rice, and thus income. of farmers,” Banerjee wrote in her two-page letter to Modi.
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