Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday made a call for concerted efforts to exert pressure on the Union government to correct its existing policies which have plunged the rubber sector into a deep crisis.
Addressing mediapersons at Pathanamthitta, on the sidelines of the Navakerala Sadas, a public outreach programme by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, he said that the Centre has not been paying the subsidy for rubber farmers for the past several months.
He said that the Union government has also not considered increasing the import duty to restrict the import of natural rubber, citing global trade agreements. The Centre is also not ready to consider rubber as an agricultural product, and continues to treat it as an industrial raw material.
