Mangaluru : The Consortium of Pepper Growers’ Organisation on Thursday urged the Union government to allow import of pepper only through two ports in the country. Welcoming the government’s decision to fix the Minimum Import Price, that is cost, insurance and freight (CIF) value, for pepper at ₹ 500 a kg to protect the interests of pepper growers on December 6, the consortium said that if its demand was implemented, it will help to monitor effectively that only quality pepper is imported. If pepper is allowed to be imported through all ports there are dangers of inferior quality of pepper entering the market threatening the stability of prices of domestic market, it said.

Hence, its import should be allowed only through ports in Kerala and Karnataka, the major pepper growing States. Since the two States produced quality pepper, any inferior quality entering the market could be monitored effectively, it said.

Konkodi Padmanabha, convenor of the organisation, and Vishwanatha, coordinator of the organisation, urged the government to fix anti-dumping duty on imported pepper to protect the interests of domestic growers.

They said that a delegation of the consortium had met Union Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu to urge the government to fix the MIP on pepper on November 23. “Mr. Prabhu had assured us of corrective action in a fortnight and DGFT notification has come on the 13th day of us meeting him in Delhi,” Mr. Padmanabha said.

He said that the action of the government would help pepper price that as on date is ₹365 a kg to stabilise. “Growers had seen pepper price touch ₹760 a kg last year,” he said, adding the price correction would start in the next two months when the new crop arrived in the market. “This is mainly because DGFT has already issued licenses for import and notification will come in to force for future imports,” he added.

Mr. Vishwanatha said that the Ministry must increase import duty on pepper from 64% to 108% as done in case of areca nut. Apprehensing of the possibility of pepper being routed through Nepal, Vishwanath said consortium also urged the Ministry to monitor the same stringently.

“Nepalese imports into India is duty free under Indo-Nepalese trade agreement,” he said, adding Mr. Prabhu’s predecessor Nirmala Sitharaman had similarly placed curbs on areca nut imports into India from Nepal.