Centre to support industries to combat counterfeiting, piracy

Nisha Das
22 December 2003

Mumbai: The central government has decided to support industries to combat counterfeiting and piracy.

Bela Banerjee, joint secretary, human resources development (HRD) ministry, said here that the government is ready to extend any kind of financial assistance for awareness programmes for enforcing agencies and various industry associations to combat counterfeiting.

"We have enough laws to counter piracy in the country. What we lack is awareness about the existence of these laws. The government has many awareness schemes of enforcing agencies including the judiciary in the country and the HRD ministry is ready to support the industry associations financially to organise these awareness programmes," she said.

She was addressing a 'National Workshop on Combating Counterfeiting', jointly organised by Manufactures' Association of Information Technology and IT major Hewlett-Packard.

K M Tiwari, chief commissioner of customs, Mumbai, said the total piracy market in India is estimated at over Rs 2,000 crore and the central as well as state governments are facing tax losses of Rs 400 crore annually due to the widespread counterfeiting and piracy problems.

He said: "Customs is ready to extend all the help to industry to combat counterfeiting, and associations should organise various awareness programmes to the central excise department, which is directly linked to the manufacturing of goods."