THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In one of the biggest purges it has undertaken, the customs department has begun disposing of around 16 tonnes of cigarettes that were brought into the country without paying taxes.
The contraband, whose market value has been pegged at Rs 17.43 crore, is being destroyed at a high-temperature cement kiln. Customs sources said the consignments dispatched for disposal comprised 1.07 crore cigarette sticks that were seized from the Malabar region in the past two years. The disposal is being done in an undisclosed cement factory in central Kerala and the whole exercise is expected to take up to 30 days, said a customs source.
“Up to 500kg cigarettes are disposed of each day. The contraband was seized from Malappuram, Thrissur and Kozhikode districts. We occasionally dispose of smaller quantities of cigarettes like 500 to 1,000 kg. However, this time the volume of contraband to be destroyed is huge,” the source said.
The seized contraband include those smuggled via countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh or counterfeits made here.
“There is a practice of buying cigarettes that have crossed expiry date from other states and then repackaging them as foreign brands. Since the owners do not show records to reflect they are genuinely imported goods, we treat them as smuggled,” said a source.
Rs 5L spent on transferring cigarettes
The source said there there is also a trend of producing knock offs of international brands. “The consignments sent for disposal has got these types of cigarettes as well as those that were smuggled from abroad,” the source added.
The contraband is destroyed by following the norms laid down by the Pollution Control Board. The people involved in this shady business are charged a penalty as per the market rate of the contraband, said the source. The customs source divulged that illegal sale of a cigarette stick that evaded taxes gives a profit up to six times the production cost.
The ongoing exercise has brought financial liability on the customs as they had to spend around Rs 5 lakh in transferring the consignments in two trucks to the cement factory. They also will have to pay Rs 5000 each day to the factory as fee for incinerating the contraband.