"There is a demand for organic spices in the world. Fortunately, more than 80% of Indian spices are made organically. Growing demand for natural color and flavour is opening doors for chilly and turmeric. Our thrust is to develop better products and organic farming methods," Scindia said after inaugurating the World Spice Congress in the capital on Wednesday.

India has been the largest producer and exporter of spices in the world, exporting 5 million tonne spices across 63 varieties. Scindia said spice growers largely depend on internal prices and the industry has reached a stage where the spice growers and producers are able to command their own prices in the international market.

"60% of our exports are in the form of value added products. Our goal is to increase the export, quality and production," he added.

Source: Financial Express Need to invest in branding, packaging spices: Scindia

The four-member committee held its first meeting on January 28. "The minister indicated at the meeting that there is a need to bring in change in the existing logo and make it a more contemporary one," said Bharat Arya, chief executive officer of JV Gokal & Co and a member of the task force.

Adman Piyush Pandey, who was a tea taster in Kolkata before joining Ogilvy & Mather India in 1982, is expected to help the commerce ministry and Tea Board of India in this exercise.

Sources say that the minister feels the new logo should be indicative of the country as well like the lion logo, the Sri Lankans use for their tea. In case of the neighbouring country ofcourse, the lion occupies its pride of place in the national flag. The Indian national flag in contrast has the more sedate Ashoka Chakra at the centre and the industry isn't quite sure how that can help the tea cause. The Indian tiger can ofcourse be a match for the Sri Lankan lion if push comes to a shove and some light-hearted banter in the course of having brainstorming sessions on the ideal logo, in tea rooms around Kolkata also has it that the peacock can also be made to sip tea, if beauty is to be portrayed quite indicatively !

Source: Economic Times Indian tea to get new look, logo

When the young MP from Guna was made a junior minister for communication and IT during the final year of the last UPA regime, he was in a hurry to make a mark in the government. Those were uncertain days for all Congressmen as political pundits had predicted an early fall of the UPA government, thanks to the Indo-US nuke deal. His own ministry was preoccupied with issues such as 3G and number portability. Wasting no time, Scindia chose to devote his time and energy for rebranding India's postal department which remained a laggard for decades post Independence.

"I was passionate about it. Have you been to Lodhi Market post office sometime recently? The very look and feel of the place has changed altogether," he says with a sense of pride and satisfaction. Now in Udyog Bhawan, Scindia wants to bring in the same rigour and passion to transform the way exports take place and also to rebrand Indian tea for global customers. There are plans even to open branded tea outlets around the world. And Scindia is adopting the same formula which he had deployed while rebranding India Post and gained instant dividends.

SK Sinha, chief general manager of Postal Life Insurance, narrates how Scindia forced senior postal officers to personally sit at the post offices to improve services. "The modernisation of post offices was taken up on a mission mode. Unlike many other government programmes, there were strict deadlines and Scindia held regular meetings with senior officials to ensure it's on track. The concept of `change leaders' was introduced in a government set-up. The faster delivery was made a key component of the mission, and tolerance level was reduced to less than 5%," he says.

If rebranding of India Post is considered a benchmark, the bigger challenge that Scindia faces today is whether he would be able to match hiswork in the commerce ministry with that of his earlier tenure. Senior officials in the ministry, who did not wish to be named, say that Scindia's major handicap is lack of freedom within the ministry. As a junior minister, his hands are tied and he could do very little on his own to make a difference to Indian exporters or tea industry. However, Scindia, who along with other ministers of state held a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on work allocation, would not like to talk on this subject.

Source: Economic Times By Shantanu Nandan Sharma Jyotiraditya Scindia: Man who revived the Indian Postal system

"Though the Centre was giving Rs 10,000 crore annually to Madhya Pradesh, the state growth rate was just 4.9 per cent and it was lagging behind Bihar on this count," the Minister told reporters here.

The state government should study the reasons behind the "dismal" show on the growth rate front and take corrective measure to improve it, he said.

Scindia said that apart from Rs 10,000 crore, Madhya Pradesh was getting tax and royalty money as well from the Centre.

He reminded that during the tenure of NDA government at the Centre, Madhya Pradesh used to get just Rs 2,000 crore as funds for development.

"Subsidy is a matter of consideration, give me a little bit of time", Scindia said after inaugurating the rubber clinic, the distance diagnostic information system of Rubber Board here today.

Scindia said paucity of funds was not the problem but the declared projects were not being implemented `fruitfully'

He urged growers to improve quality by utilising new varieties of clones which are able to face problems like climate change and harmful pests.

Of the total production, he said 78 per cent of rubber was produced in Kerala.

"Accurate and timely diagnosis of diseases and adoption of suitable control measures is essential for a crop like rubber to maintain and improve productivity, thereby increasing net income of the farmers," Rubber Board Chairman Sajan Peter said.

The rubber clinic helps farmers in crop disease management. It helps in rapid diagnosis and identification of pests and diseases of rubber.

The commerce and industry ministry will unveil a stimulus package within the next few days for select export sectors, which continue to suffer even as the overall export situation has shown signs of revival.

The incentives would only be meant for those sectors that have failed to show significant improvement despite sops from the government earlier.

BREATHER ON ANVIL

• Stimulus to be for the select export sectors that continue to suffer even as the overall export situation has shown signs of revival

• The govt had initiated a sectoral review in Nov to assess the impact of stimulus measures to exporters

• According to ministry officials, incentives could be provided to sectors like textile, leather, handicrafts, cotton yarn, jute, minerals and fruit and vegetables

• Sops would be in the form of extension of some of the benefit schemes or increasing duty drawback rates

• Benefits under the Focus Products Scheme and Focus Market Scheme and greater support through market development assistance could be provided

"The sectoral review exercise is over. We have made an assessment and we will soon announce incentives for those sectors which continue to lag and suffer because of demand recessionary conditions notwithstanding what has happened in the last 14 months. For those sectors, we will provide an extra helping hand," Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar told Business Standard.

Source: Business-standard Govt to announce stimulus for select exporters soon

However, in an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18, Scindia assured that the government would not withdraw the stimulus for exporters till the recovery strengthens. In fact it may give additional incentives to certain sectors including engineering, gems and jewellery, which may be rolled out by January February.

Further, he said that the government will be reviewing the export situation report by December-end.

Below is a verbatim transcript of the interview. Also watch the video.<center></center>

Q: Will export sops continue?
A: We were very apprehensive and we were very careful in terms of modulating the steps that we took. Needless to say that the situation was not only grim it was alarming. The fact that exports were reducing by 39% month-on-month compared to last year. The year-on-year (YoY) figures have improved considerably from a low of close to USD 10 billion a month in April-May of this fiscal - you are now seeing resurgence in the normal value of exports upto close to USD 13-14 billion.

What is heartening to note - this is something that I had taken the boldness of taking a foot forward - is also the percentage numbers are reducing in terms of negativity from minus 39% to single digits of 6.6%.

Last month has been about USD 13.5 billion odd. We have posted to close to USD 90 billion in the first seven months of this fiscal. To reach a target of close to USD 160-165 billion, we need to make sure that we grow at a clip of 12% for the balance five months at about USD 14 billion a month to reach USD 165 billion.

Source: www.moneycontrol.com Won't curb exporter sops till recovery strengthen: Scindia

It's unlikely that the SEZ Act which was promulgated three years ago, would undergo even minor changes any time soon. Minister of state for commerce and industry Jyotiraditya Scindia feels that the Centre's SEZ policy is a success in creating 2.5 lakh jobs during the last three years, and the Act should be given some more time before any verdict is pronounced. In a free-wheeling interview with ET on the current status of SEZs and the road ahead, the minister said that a few isolated instances of developers wishing to get out can't undermine the success of the SEZ story in India. Some excerpts:

The big rush for special economic zones is over now. In fact, some developers want to get out of them. How do you rate the policy?
We have a good number of SEZs in the country and the number is growing. We have over 100 operational SEZs now. The revenue in these zones was about Rs 100,000 crore last fiscal year, and if we go by the revenue figure of the first six months of the current year, it should surpass last year's. Also, SEZs have created over 2.5 lakh jobs during the last three years.

But the current slowdown has made major impact on the growth of these zones?
No. The good thing about SEZs is that the global slowdown has not impacted them much. Exports are under pressure, but there have been good signs too. SEZs are doing well, and there is no need to go tinkering with the Act. Let's give some more time to the Act which was promulgated only three years ago.

But quite a few SEZ developers now want to get out it. That's quite a serious matter.

They are really a very small in number. And that too, it was more sector specific. The developers are investing in those zones. So far as SEZs in Goa are concerned, I won't like to comment as the matter is sub-judice.

Source: Economic Times By Shantanu Nandan Sharma 'State should now aggressively take up SEZ cause'

"I don't think it (impact of Dubai crisis) should be much (on our exports)," Scindia said on the sidelines of a International Chromium Development Association meet here.

He, however said, steps should be taken to ward off any likely impact on India's exports to the middle east countries.

"I think we need to take the required steps to make sure it does not impact us," he said.

Scindia said the government would announce measures to help the labour intensive export sectors to prop up the country's outward shipments that are on a downslide since October 2008.

The government is also implementing a number of schemes during the 11th Plan period, which,  inter-alia, include extending financial assistance for the benefit of coffee growers.  During 2008-09, the coffee production was 2,62,300 metric tonnes. On an average, about 70% of the country's production is exported.