homeagriculture NewsAnimal husbandry, dairy farmers pay 10% more income tax than rich people, says Amul's RS Sodhi
Animal husbandry, dairy farmers pay 10% more income tax than rich people, says Amul's RS Sodhi
Amul managing director RS Sodhi on Friday said animal husbandry and dairy usually do not find much notice in the Budget even as their contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) or agriculture has been quite big.
Amul managing director RS Sodhi on Friday said animal husbandry and dairy usually do not find much notice in the Budget even as their contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) or agriculture has been quite big.
Amul, India's biggest FMCG or food company which is owned by 3.6 million poor farmers, pay 30 percent income tax, Sodhi said. "If you add surcharge and education cess, we are paying 35 percent income tax whereas the big corporates, big multi-nationals are paying only 25 percent."
Therefore, farmers are paying 10 percent more income tax than rich people, he added.
"So, I don't know why we are being asked to pay more income tax. Fourth demand is GST. Ghee is produced from milk which is a produce of farmer and ghee is consumed by everybody and anybody in India."
"On ghee there is a 12 percent GST which translates into Rs 4 per litre. So farmer is getting Rs 4 less price because of GST whereas the imported vegetable oil or palm oil GST is only 5 percent. So, Indian farmers produce is taxed higher and foreign farmers produce is tax lower, so why this disparity?"
He said dairy and animal husbandry have been contributing 4.2 percent of India's GDP, which is around 30 percent of agricultural GDP. Agriculture contributes 17-18 percent to India's GDP.
He told CNBC-TV18 that when it comes to Budget allocation dairy and animal husbandry get only 0.11 percent despite return on investment in this segment is much better than cultivation.
"If you invest Rs 1 crore in dairy, you get 14 percent return, if you invest Rs 1 crore in cultivation you get only 3 percent return."
"Animal husbandry should get more than Rs 40000 crore allocation whereas today this segment is getting only Rs 2900 crore. Second what we want is, like agriculture is exempted from income tax, dairy farmers should be also exempted from the income tax."
First Published: Jan 24, 2020 11:50 PM IST
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