Perils of Smuggling and Counterfeiting
Vijaykumar H K
Our country’s profitable growth story has lately captured the world’s attention, posing new challenges for the domestic frugality. One of the ongoing challenges is the growing illegal trade in fakes, pass- offs, and smuggled goods.Counterfeiting and smuggling detriment public progress by affecting fiscal, social, and physical health around the world. Smuggling is a international and transborder crime. It destabilises the legal assiduity, stifles invention and investment, reduces government earnings, and jeopardises consumer health and safety.
The arrival of technology, rapid-fire communication channels, and globalisation have accelerated the exponential growth of lawless trade in dangerous forms similar as counterfeiting and smuggling.
Lawless trade is a public trouble because it generates black plutocrat, which is also used to fund systematized crime, similar as terrorism. The actuality and operation of counterfeiting and smuggling are broad in compass and large in value, impacting not only the global frugality, causing losses to both assiduity and government, but also negatively impacting consumer health and safety and largely funding terrorist conditioning worldwide.
A trouble to Our public Interests investigates the impact of lawless trade in five crucial Indian diligence mobile phones, FMCG- Household and Personal Goods, FMCG- Packaged Foods, Tobacco Products, and Alcoholic potables.
According to the report, the lawless request in the five key diligence was worth three thousand crores in the former time, with the FMCG assiduity — menage and particular goods, and packaged foods — counting for 3/ 4th of the total lawless value of goods in the five key diligence.
According to the report, illegal trade in mentioned above results in a total estimated licit employment loss of sixteen lakh.The estimated duty loss to the government due to lawless goods in these diligences is about fifty thousand crore, with tobacco products and alcoholic potables counting for nearly forty- nine percent of the overall duty loss.
To combat the growing troubles of counterfeiting and smuggling, it’s critical to strengthen the rule of law and ameliorate the effectiveness of penalties and warrants. Businesses must take applicable way to cover consumers from the proliferation of scammers and infringers who seek to take advantage of the situation.Mindfulness and outreach is an essential element in erecting a visionary strategy to check this growing imminence of counterfeiting and smuggling. Government has to concentrate on spreading mindfulness and enabling a dialogue between the stakeholders on the intimidating magnitude of lawless trade to abolish this demon from the society.
Central government should organize mindfulness programs in educational institutions and considerably involve the youth in this fight against lawless trade.Need for nonstop mindfulness generation to educate the consumers on the implicit pitfalls and mischievous impact of buying and using fake, spurious and smuggled products.Creating public mindfulness, adding surveillance, collaboration and combined sweats are needed amongst colorful stakeholders, enforcement agencies, assiduity, cooperation with private stakeholders and consumers can help fight the problem of counterfeiting and smuggling.
Government has to propagate the problem of counterfeiting and smuggling on social media channels, journals and other promotional sources in order to make the general public apprehensive of this intimidating issue.
There’s vital need for the policy makers, enforcement agencies and assiduity to be on the frontal bottom, to attack it.
Customs and border control agencies has to be a visionary in precluding lawless trade and dismembering international smuggling operations. Indian customs have to make a legal and executive system, introducing the perpetration of new technology, threat operation and data analytics to combat lawless trade.
