Cutting across party lines, all Lok Sabha MPs from Kerala on Thursday backed the Congress leader Anto Antony’s demand for immediate intervention from the Centre to arrest rising imports of natural rubber.
“Six tyre manufacturers are making exorbitant profits by throwing 40 lakh rubber growers into deep crisis,” Antony said during Zero Hour, supported by MPs from his State, including those from the Left parties.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh assured the agitated MPs that he would take up the matter with the Minister concerned.
Antony said rubber growers in Kerala were bearing the brunt of large-scale influx of foreign rubber, leading to a fall in price in the domestic market, and blamed the tyre industry, which accounts for 65 per cent of natural rubber use, for the crisis.
“The tyre industry marked 86 per cent of increase in net profit during the last year. Therefore, it is clear who is the loser, and who is the winner from the dampening prices of natural rubber,” said Antony, who hails from Kottayam district, part of Kerala’s rubber belt.
He said earlier the average annual import of natural rubber was 2 lakh tonne. However, in the past 18 months, 6.5 lakh tonne of rubber has been imported, he said.
Cheap rate
He further said manufactures were also importing other forms of rubber, such as block rubber and crumb rubber. “Cheap rate is their major attraction. For instance, price of crumb rubber is ₹ 75 per kg,” he said, adding that import of tyres, especially used tyres, was also affecting rubber growers’ prospects.
Citing Rubber Board data, Antony said in 2011, the price of natural rubber was ₹ 243/kg, but had now plunged to ₹106/kg. “This is the lowest rate in history,” he said, adding that middlemen were even buying rubber at below ₹100/kg.
India produced 8.75 tonnes of natural rubber, which has fallen to 5.5 lakh tonne in the current year, he said.
