Hyderabad: Hyderabad is not the epicenter of smuggling of raw human hair or temple hair from Tirupati heading towards Myanmar. The Ministry of Finance has informed that no such cases have been detected by customs field formations and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) since financial year 2023-24, where Hyderabad found as the epicenter of smuggling of raw human hair or temple hair from Tirupati heading towards Myanmar or involving human hair smugglers from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh selling hair through shell companies in North-East and Kolkata. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in a Notification No. 59/2024-25 dated February 10, 2025, has revised the export policy for “unworked human hair whether or not washed or scoured and waste of human hair”, reclassifying them from ‘Restricted’ to ‘Prohibited’ item. However, export shall be “Free” if FOB value is US Dollar 65 or above per kilogram. Further, to deter smuggling, the DRI and customs field formations maintain constant vigil and undertake operational measures, based on intelligence, risk-based interdiction and targeting and non-intrusive inspection like container scanning. This was stated by Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, while replying to a question raised by MP Yerram Venkata Subba Reddy in Rajya Sabha on Hyderabad as the epicenter of smuggling of raw human hair. He sought to know whether DRI recently intercepted a consignment of temple hair from Tirupati heading towards Myanmar and arrested one smuggler. He wanted to know whether human hair smugglers from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh selling hair through shell companies in North-East and Kolkata and then smuggled to China, Myanmar, etc.
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