Industry & Economy
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Budget
An oversight for plastic lens manufacturers?
Our Bureau,
BANGALORE, Feb. 28
EVEN as the Finance Minister brought cheers to the average citizens, a segment of the eye care industry sighed with disappointment.
When Mr Jaswant Singh announced a drastic reduction in both import and excise duties for ophthalmic blanks, there were cheers which receded when the industry engaged in the plastic lens business discerned the details. This segment has been left out of the relief it had been expecting, as the benefits announced were for that of glass blanks used for spectacle lenses.
"This could be an oversight," said Mr B. Jayanth, Managing Director of Essilor SRF Optics Ltd.
Talking to Business Line, Mr Jayanth said while the import and excise duties for the glass blanks have been reduced from 30 to 5 per cent and from 16 to 8 per cent respectively, the plastic lenses industry has had to remain content with a small cut in import duty, which was part of the overall policy to reduce the peak duty. The peak duty has been reduced from 30 to 25 per cent.
While stating that the plastic lenses manufacturers would take up with the Government for a correction, Mr Jayanth said this imbalance would affect the trend in the usage of plastic lenses for spectacles in the country.
Besides China, India is one of the few countries which has a predominant market for glass lenses. With 95 per cent of the 60 million lenses sold in the market accounting for glass lenses, this sector depends entirely on imports for its lens production as against a 30 per cent indigenous capacity of plastic lenses.
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