Domestic producers of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) want the government to leave the import duty on the material untouched in the budget as they fear lowing of duty may hamper planned domestic capacity addition.PVC is plastic with applications in several industries including farms, buildings, construction, and healthcare. Duty on the import of PVC has been doubled in the past few years to 10%, which encouraged new investment commitment by domestic players.“The capacity additions were planned in response to duty increases and now if the government were to bring it down, it will put to risk new capacity,” said Kamal Nanavaty, the president of Chemicals and Petrochemicals Manufacturers’ Association (CPMA), which includes several PVC makers including Reliance Industries, Finolex Industries, and Chemplast.India produces about 1.5 million tonnes a year of PVC, which helps meet less than half of the country’s total consumption of about 3.2 million tonnes, as per Nanavaty. Reliance Industries produces about 45% of the country’s total PVC.RIL plans to add 1.5 million tonnes a year of fresh capacity while Adani group intends to build 2 million tonnes a year of the production facility, according to Nanavaty. This planned combined capacity of 3.5 million tonnes will more than triple India’s capacity in a few years.“In India, industries have to bear a higher cost of capital and infra and so the loss of duty protection would put them at a disadvantage to foreign players,” Nanavaty said.With 500,000 tonnes per year of supplies, Japan is currently the biggest PVC exporter to India. A sharp rise in Japanese export has been aided by the free trade agreement between India and Japan, which lowered duties to 5%, Nanavaty said. Taiwan, Korea, ASEAN nations, and China are other major exporters to India.Import duty cut will help foreign suppliers at the expense of domestic producers, he said.