OPA demands reduced excise duty

In this, the association discussed various issues faced by the offset printers in Ludhiana and reached a collective decision to demand from the Union Government rationalisation of the output excise duty on finished products.

Currently, the input excise duty on the raw material is 5% while the output excise duty is in the range of 5-10% for various products. The members want the output excise duty to be reduced to 5%.

The existing rules require the printers to deposit the 10% excise duty by the end of each month, with a grace period of 10 days. However, the credit cycle prevailing in the industry is between 30-90 days. This means that the printers have to bear the excise duty cost from their pockets.

Kushal Jain, vice president of OPA said: “The balance is not being maintained because input excise duty is 5%, while the output duty on many products is even 10%. So, we have to pay more tax. This is not justified. We will write to the Union Government to rationalise it in the coming union budget.”

Apart from this, Parveen Aggarwal, president, OPA also released the association’s annual calendar for the year 2012. He told that this calendar is considered to be ‘Printers’ Jantri’, giving almost complete details about the events, trade shows and exhibitions concerning the printing and packaging industry world over, besides the details of the gazetted holidays.

In the meeting, printers lauded the new project `Print Chetna' launched by OPA under which the association is trying to spread awareness among government school students about the printing industry.

“After one such lecture in a government senior secondary school in Gobind Nagar, around 45 students got themselves registered with OPA to get free training,” said Kamal Chopra, general secretary, OPA. Apart from training, the registered students are given a stipend to encourage them to enter the print industry.

In addition to this, Rommy Malhotra, past president, OPA also released a Price Calculation Book for the printers. This book aims to help the owners of printing units to quote the correct market price to their clients for a various jobs.

The meeting, which was attended by more than 65 members, also discussed the high power cost, labour crisis and many other issues plaguing the Ludhiana offset printing industry.