NEW DELHI: The Union Budget 2021-22 has provided no respite to newspaper publishers who had pinned their hopes on the government to waive the existing custom duty on newsprint.

The pandemic has severely hit the newspaper industry, with circulation plummeting across the country, which in turn has impacted its overall functioning. Publishers were looking forward to a waiver of the five per cent custom duty on newsprint, which would have helped to bring some sizable reduction in production costs.

There was no custom duty on newsprint before July 2019, when the Centre decided to slap a ten per cent duty on the category for the first time. Publications had heaved a sigh of relief last year, when the custom duty was lowered to five per cent. However, this year, there was no such incentive.

The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) had also submitted a representation to finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman ahead of the budget regarding the same, highlighting that it will at most yield Rs 200 crores to the government exchequer in the next fiscal year.

“Several newspapers have taken cost-cutting efforts and many editions are closed, the number of pages have come down and there have been massive job cuts. In view of the grim situation, it will be a great relief to the industry if the custom duty on newsprint is removed,” INS president L Adimoolam had told PTI.

According to INS, the cost of newsprint has jumped 20 per cent in the last three months. There have also been reports of newspapers which have stopped circulation in areas where the distribution is low.