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Standard packs must for 19 items from today

[email protected] (PTI)
November 2, 2012

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New Delhi, November 2: Manufacturers of 19 commodities, mostly food items like biscuit and bread, will have to package their products in standard sizes from Friday — a move aimed at protecting consumers from unfair trade practice by companies of reducing weight without changing the retail price.

 

The government has made mandatory standardised packaging of 19 items and non-compliance would invite penal action. “In the interest of common consumer, from today onwards 19 commodities of day-to-day use, like bread, biscuits, tea can be sold in specified standard packs only.

 

“Manufacture, packing or import of these commodities in non-standard packs will invite penal action,” Consumer Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

 

Following complaints regarding unfair reduction in the quantity of packaged products from some consumer organisations, the government has amended the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules 2011. A notice was issued on June 5 this year in this regard.

 

“It has been observed that some manufacturers in the country are reducing quantity of packaged products by small fractions without making a change in the price of the product,” Food Minister K V Thomas had said.

 

The other items are — cereals, pulses, edible oils, vanaspati, ghee, butter oil, rice (powder), atta, rava, suji, baby food, weaning food, un-canned packages of butter and margarine, milk powder, aerated soft drinks, non-alcoholic beverages, mineral water and drinking water, cement in bags,  paint,  varnish, soaps, non-soapy detergents (powder), materials for beverages.

 

The packaging standards for bread (including brown bread but excluding bun) has been specified as 50gm and thereafter in multiples of 50gm up to 500gm. Above 500gm, the weight of pack should be in the multiples of 100gm, the statement said.

 

In case of biscuits, the sizes has been fixed at 25gm, 50gm, 60gm, 75gm, 100gm, 120gm, 150gm, 200gm, 250gm, 300gm, thereafter in multiples of 100gm up to 1 kg and thereafter in multiples of 500gm up to 5 kg.

 

The ministry, however, said that non-standard packs manufactured and packed on or before 31st October and ready for sale in different retail outlets would be exempt from penal action.

 


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News Network
May 6,2020

New Delhi, May 6: Taking a cue from states, the Centre announced one of the steepest hikes in duties on petrol and diesel in the recent past, by raising it by Rs 10 and Rs 13 per litre, respectively, in a notification issued late on Tuesday.

Retail prices, however, will see no change as the price hike will be absorbed by oil marketing companies against the fall in crude prices.

Road and infrastructure cess was hiked by Rs 8 for petrol and diesel and the special additional excise duty (SAED) was hiked by Rs 2 per litre and Rs 5 per litre, respectively. While the road cess will only go into the Centre’s coffers, the hike on account of SAED will be passed on to states via devolution at 42 per cent. Hence, the states will get only Rs 0.84 per litre in case of petrol and Rs 2.1 in case of diesel.

The decision comes after several states increased the value added tax (VAT) on petrol and diesel making use of the lower price regime. The Delhi government on Tuesday increased VAT on petrol and diesel to 30 per cent each, from 27 and 16.75, respectively. As a result, the price of petrol in Delhi increased by Rs 1.67 to Rs 71.26 a litre and diesel by Rs 7.10 to Rs 69.29 in Delhi on Tuesday.

Amid falling international crude oil prices, the Centre introduced an enabling provision in March to raise excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 8 per litre in the Finance Act. The government had on March 14 raised excise duty on petrol and diesel by? 3 per litre each, which was to help raise an additional ?39,000 crore in revenue annually.

This duty hike included Rs 2 a litre increase in SAED and Rs 1 in road and infrastructure cess. It raised SAED to Rs 10 for petrol and Rs 4 for diesel. The limit has now been increased to Rs 18 a litre in case of petrol and Rs 12 in case of diesel by way of amendment of the Eighth Schedule of the Finance Act.

Economists said the move would impact retail inflation by over half a percentage point at least. “With lower consumption, there was loss of revenue for Centre and states, who earn Rs 6 trillion annually or Rs 50,000 crore monthly from fuel. Amid lockdown in April, the collection must have come down to just Rs 5,000 crore, and this will hold for May.

This means that Centre and states have lost 20 per cent of annual revenue from fuel. Hence, they have hiked duties to recover losses,” said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist, CARE Ratings. He added that the hike will impact inflation by at least 0.6-0.7 percentage points.

According to industry experts, an estimate of the additional government revenue cannot be made as the consumption of petrol and diesel has dropped to 40 per cent of what it was before the lockdown. The duty hike comes following a drop in international crude oil prices in April, owing to lower consumption figures globally. At 11.50 pm on Tuesday, Brent was priced at $30.67 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was seen at $24.36 a barrel. On Monday, the Indian basket of crude oil was priced at $23.38 a barrel, after touching a 15-year low last month.

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News Network
July 21,2020

New Delhi, Jul 21: With a spike of 37,148 cases and 587 deaths reported in India in the last 24 hours, the total number of COVID-19 cases stands at 11,55,191, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The total number of cases include 4,02,529 active cases, 7,24,578 cured/discharged/migrated and 28,084 deaths, the ministry informed.

Maharashtra remains the worst affected state with 3,18,695 cases and 12,030 deaths.
The second worst-hit state, Tamil Nadu has reported 1,75,678 COVID-19 cases so far while Delhi has reported 1,23,747 cases, according to the Health Ministry.

Meanwhile, as per the information provided by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 1,43,81,303 samples have been tested for COVID-19 up to July 20. Of these 3,33,395 were tested yesterday.

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Agencies
February 13,2020

New Delhi, Feb 13: The BJP's Amit Shah today said statements like "goli maaro" and "Indo-Pak match" should not have been made by BJP leaders ahead of the Delhi elections.

The BJP may have suffered in the elections because of hate statements made by party leaders, he said, reported news agency Press Trust of India.

The party, he said, had distanced itself from such remarks.

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