How Modi govt helped Dawood Khan, an agarbatti-maker, smile after Rs 2 crore loss

Agarbatti imports policy is helping agarbatti maker across India. Representational image

After suffering a loss of around Rs 1.5 to Rs 2 crore over several years, Agarbatti-maker Dawood Khan was forced to shut down his factory. His villain was the increasing import of agarbattis from countries like China and Vietnam. He started making losses from 2010 till 2019. Before 2010, Khan had a profit-making enterprise, giving employment to hundreds of workers, the businessman is seen saying in a video shared by Khadi India.

But thanks to a decision of the Narendra Modi government to restrict agarbatti import from countries like Vietnam and China last year, Khan has managed to make a comeback in the business and start making some profiting again.

Khan is not the only agarbatti-maker who has benefitted from the government’s decision. The restrictions have brought back smiles of lakhs of agarbatti artisans and is helping in transforming their lives.

Like Khan, another agarbatti-maker in Jabalpur, Gushal Rafalia says that restrictions on agarbatti import has given a big boost to the agarbatti industry in India. Rafalia is seen saying in a video that he has 32 machines, which is giving employment to 35 women. Soon, he plans to increase the number of agarbatti machines, giving employment to around 100 people.

Dawood Khan lost appx Rs.2 Cr in Agarbatti business till 2019.KVIC brought back his smile & lakhs of other Agarbatti artisans by getting import of Agarbatti under restricted category. Transforming lives, encouraging make in India.@PMOIndia,@PiyushGoyal,@asadowaisi,@naqvimukhtar pic.twitter.com/Q6ck0YWfxP

— Chairman KVIC (@ChairmanKvic) February 18, 2020

The central government had taken an important decision to restrict agarbatti import in August last year by putting ‘Agarbatti and other odiferous operations which operate by burning’ in the “Restricted” category.

Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, had told the Rajya Sabha in November last year: “Imports of agarbatti are largely coming from Vietnam. Out of total 1,04,097 metric tonne (MT) of imports of agarbatti, imports from Vietnam was around 98,000 MT in 2018-19. By Notification dated 31.08.2019, import of agarbatti has been amended from free to restricted with immediate effect.”