Burdened with a string of transaction costs under different heads, the pharmaceutical exporters in the country have demanded to the central government to do away with the transaction costs like war surcharge, scanning charges, handling charges, changing currency adjustment charges, etc.

In a memorandum submitted to the Union Commerce Ministry at the recent meeting of Board of Trade in New Delhi, the pharmaceutical industry has urged Union Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath to scrap these surcharges, which have been literally strangulating the pharma exporters. While the industry has demanded to the government to do away with the war surcharge, it has urged it to reduce other surcharges.

Urging the government to discontinue the war surcharge, Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil) chairman Dinesh Modi, who also attended the Board of Trade meeting in New Delhi on March 7, pleaded to the Minister that there was no point in continuing the war surcharge as the Afghan war, on which the government introduced the surcharge, is over for a long time back. The Commerce Ministry is seeking the suggestions of the industries before announcing the Annual Supplement to the Exim policy on April 2.

Different airlines had imposed a surcharge of Rs 5 to 7 per kg for all the goods dispatched by air after the United States declared war on Afghanistan in October 2001 in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, marking the beginning of its war on terrorism campaign, seeking to oust the Taliban and find al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. After the Afghan war, the airlines continued with the war surcharge as by then the US had declared another war on Iraq in 2003 to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.

The indutsy pleads that since the Iraq war in all practical pursposes is over, there is no point in allowing the airlines to continue to charge the surcharge.

The pharma exporters have also raised their voice against the congestion charges and handling charges paid to the ports. For a 20 feet container, the exporters have ot pay US dollar 55 and for a 40 feet container they have to pay US dollar 110 as congestion charges to the ports. Since the infrastructure development is the responsibility of the government, the industry pleads that it should either be discontinued or reduced. The industry has also urged the Ministry to reduce the handling charges of Rs 1 per kg.

Another demand put forward by the pharma exporters to the Union Commerce Ministry is the changing currency adjustment charged by the ships varying from 8.3 per cent to 20 per cent depending on the value. The industry also demanded to reduce the scanning charges of Rs 1.5 per kg.

Asking the government to reduce these surcharges, the industry pleaded that at least the government should not make profits on these counts and instead charge the industry only to meet the related expenses.