Patna: The state's draft agro-forestry policy, which is set to take final shape next month, has pitched for keeping the timber business out of the ambit of the goods and services tax (GST).

At present, 18 per cent GST is imposed on the timber business. "One of the most important thrusts of the proposed policy is to make the timber business attractive. Only then more and more farmers would take up agro-forestry in a big way," said a senior environment and forest department official.

A team of experts and state environment and forest department officials have formulated the agro-forestry policy.

The state government would take the final call on the recommended GST waiver, the forest official said.

"If other agricultural products are free from taxation, the same logic should be applied in case of wood. This would work as an incentive for farmers," the official added, justifying the recommendation.

Another major point in the draft policy pertains to the Centre's open general licence policy of the centre under which the Union government imposes no duty on import of timber from other countries. It has been seen that due to low prices, imported woods give tough competition to local timber.

"We know that this policy can be changed by the Centre only, but our policy would raise this point keeping the local farmers' interests in mind," said the forest official.

The draft policy also talks of giving some incentives on income tax to those who would invest money in agro-forestry-related works, in order to attract capital for this sector.

Keeping the ground realities in mind, the draft policy also talks of coming up with some incentives even for sharecroppers in case they go for planting trees on the leased land. "Generally sharecroppers avoid going for long-term investment as they don't know whether they would get the land for cropping in coming years or not. The policy would urge the government to devise some ways to address this point, else land being cultivated by sharecroppers would not be used for agro-forestry," said the official.

He said that the draft policy would soon be discussed at a programme in which stakeholders, including officials from the Centre, and experts would be invited for broader deliberations. After that the policy would be given final shape. It would come into effect after the state cabinet approves it.

Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who heads the environment and forest department, had announced on January 9 this year that the state government would come up with its agro-forestry policy.

The state has been laying special emphasis on this scheme for the past four years. In the year 2013-14, 71.06 lakh trees were planted in the state under this scheme. The number went up to 1.03 crore in 2014-15. In the two subsequent years, 2015-16 and 2016-17, 95.17 lakh and 94.63 lakh trees were planted respectively on the fields of Bihar farmers under the agro-forestry project.

Even in 2017-18, around 1 crore trees were planted under the scheme. The target for 2018-19 is planting 1.5 crore trees.