Rise in unemployment levels has given a headache to the Indian government. Adding to that the cashew industry of India is witnessing severe crises. More than 900 cashew processing plants shut down in coastal districts of several states across India. Many plants are on the brink of closing.
The booming cashew industry in Andhra Pradesh’s Ongole is also facing serious crises. Factory owners and around 7000 workers are worried about their future.
The cashew industry is worth 3000 crore in the costal districts of the country. The crises have not spared Manguluru, the country’s cashew capital.
Officials of Karnataka Cashew Manufactures Association (KCMA) reported that the prices of raw cashew in the market dropped by 50% last year.
High import duties
Cashew Industry’s raw material requirement is chiefly provided by the imports. About 50-55% of Industry’s raw material is supplied by the imports.
The government raised the import duty on raw cashew kernels from 45% to 70% in the Union Budget for this financial year. This was done to help the domestic cashew growers. In fiscal 2019, the cashew prices were 10% lower than previous year, owing to surplus supply of stocks through 29% increase in imports. To help domestic growers, government decided to raise the duties.
Since the Industry’s supply of raw material supply is chiefly dependent on imports, the increase in import duty has brought down the cashew supply. Thus, leading to shut down of many industries and threatening the future of the rest.
Mangaluru’s cashew industry provides employment to about 1 lakh people. The future of these industries and its employees is in danger.
High Gestation period of Cashew
Karnataka cashew development Corporation limited maintains 3,714 acres of cashew plantation. The government is providing measures to increase the acreage and production. However, these measures are likely to show difference by 2020 and 2021. This is because of the high gestation period of cashew trees.
Unfriendly Government Policies in Mangalore port
Mangalore has an installed processing capacity of 2 lakh MT per year. It procures 40,000 to 60,000 MT of cashew nuts locally. It imports about 1.5-2 lakh MT of cashew to meet the raw material demand of the industry.
Unfriendly government policies accounts for the rising stress in cashew industry. Uttara Kannada MP Anantkumar Hedge in a letter submitted to Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, pointed out, “Custom authorities are not accepting the value of products declared by the importers and are arbitrarily fixing the price for import of raw cashew nut in shells.”
According to RTI, value of many Bill of Entries (B/E) on imported cashews, were amended and raised prices to 80% from 70% by the custom officials.
Some sources further highlighting the impact of B/Es policies said,” Sometimes B/E penalty was higher than the cargo value itself, resulting in dumping of cargo.”
Economic slowdown
Economic slowdown has brought down sales in cashew industry thereby affecting the production.
Daily cashew production of all the units in Andhra Pradesh dropped drastically to 50 tonnes from 250 tonnes owing to less demand.
In the past 2 years 80% of cashew processing units closed in Kollam, Kerala. The high operational costs owing to economic slowdown, hike in import duties and less domestic supply have led to shut down of cashew industries. It leaves about 0.33 million people jobless in the state of which the majority are women.
Cashew industry employs significant population of the country and the shut downs of these industries undoubtedly rises the already high unemployment rate. The government should take immediate measures to save the cashew processing plants from collapsing.