The Centre has dismissed the reports claiming that the Ministry of Finance has imposed a 20 per cent export duty on parboiled rice and certain types of milled rice varieties. Earlier, media reported that the export duty has been imposed by the government.
According to a report, officials have clarified that a recent notification was issued to implement technical updates to the Harmonised System of Nomenclature (HSN) codes introduced in the 2025–26 budget. These changes, effective from May 1, are purely procedural, with no impact on existing duty rates, they said.
In October last year, the government had removed all the curbs on rice exports that were in force since September 2022 even as it decided to retain the ban on exports of broken rice. Within hours of lowering the Customs duty on parboiled rice to zero from 10 per cent, it scrapped the $490 per tonne minimum export price (MEP) on white rice. This was decided following a decision at a high-level inter-ministerial meeting.
This was necessitated in order to ease the problem of warehouses in Haryana and Punjab overflowing with rice stocks.
India had initially started to curb exports of rice in September 2022 when it banned the shipments of broken rice. It had then imposed a 20 per cent export duty on white rice, as a measure taken as part of the government’s efforts to tackle food inflation.