Import duties on special diets 'restricting lifesaving nutrition' for Indian children

16-Jan-2018 - Last updated on 16-Jan-2018 at 03:16 GMT

Almost 50,000 newborns have Inborn Errors of Metabolism (IEM), whereby the body is unable to effectively convert food to energy. ©Getty Images

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The Indian government should cut or waive import duties on lifesaving diets for children with metabolic errors and rare diseases.

That's the recommendation from the country's Metabolic Errors and Rare Disease (MERD) organisation, a parents' association concerned about the cost of the special diets such children require.

Currently, import duties of 30% to 40% are imposed on these diets, even as statistics show that almost 50,000 newborns have Inborn Errors of Metabolism (IEM), whereby the body is unable to effectively convert food to energy.

Parents of children with IEM have to fork out an annual average of US$3,940 on each child's treatment, which includes Food for Special Medical Purposes (FSMP).

We reported last year that FSMP diets are typically imported into India from major companies such as Abbott, Danone, Mead Johnson and Nestlé. However, India's import duties on these diets are far higher than those in most developing nations, where they attract a mere 5% to 10% import duty.

Government silence

MERD said it had appealed to different government authorities like union health minister JP Nadda to reduce the import duties on FSMP diets, but had been unsuccessful so far.

In a letter to the Special Director General of Health Services (DGHS) BD Athani, the organisation wrote: "In view of the importance of these diets for our future generation, we would request you to exempt the import duties levied on these life-saving diets in view of (the) non-existence of these products in the country."

MERD member Vikas Bhatia told Indian media: "Through this support group (MERD), we have been campaigning about IEM and special diets required for the survival of children with the problem.

"Screening is very much required so that the problem can be diagnosed for many newborns, which helps give them a normal life. There is a need to reduce or exempt the import duty on such special diets, as this will help the survival of the children."

Last year, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) teamed up with several organisations to launch Diet4Life, a scheme that allows FSMP diets to be imported into India for children suffering from IEM.

This has made special diets more accessible in India, where they were not widely or readily available until 2017, and parents of IEM patients had to resort to filling out paperwork in order to gain permission to import them.

However, the high import duties continue to affect affordability and therefore, overall accessibility.