Hyderabad: The Centre has clarified that Hyderabad is not the epicentre of smuggling of raw or temple human hair from Tirupati to Myanmar. The ministry of finance stated that since the financial year 2023–24, no such cases have been detected by the Customs field formations or the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) involving Hyderabad as a hub or any links to smugglers from Telangana or Andhra Pradesh using shell companies in the Northeast or Kolkata.In a related development, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), under the ministry of commerce and industry, issued Notification No. 59/2024–25 on February 10, 2025, revising the export policy for “unworked human hair whether or not washed or scoured, and waste of human hair.” The export of such items has been shifted from the ‘Restricted’ to ‘Prohibited’ category. However, export is allowed under the “Free” category if the FOB value is $65 or more per kg. To counter illegal trade, the DRI and customs maintain continuous vigilance and undertake operational measures based on intelligence inputs, risk-based targeting and non-intrusive techniques such as container scanning. Union minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary provided this clarification in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. The response was to a question by MP Y. V. Subba Reddy, who asked whether the DRI had recently intercepted a consignment of temple hair from Tirupati to Myanmar and arrested a smuggler. He also sought to know if smugglers from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were routing hair through shell firms in the Northeast and Kolkata before smuggling it to China and Myanmar.
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