Refiners seek waiver of VDS on burnt oil purchase

Local refiners of unusable lubricants have sought waiver of VAT deduction at source (VDS) on purchase of burnt oil (raw material) to help survival of the re-fining lubricant units, sources said.
Bangladesh Re-finery Lubricants Owners' Association (BRLOA) has requested the National Board Revenue (NBR) to take necessary steps in this regard, the sources added.
Generally, lubricant oil is used in vehicles, industries, aviation industry etc. and after a certain period of time, the lubricants become unusable and turn into fossil.
It is converted into world's top polluting item and is also very harmful to the environment and costly to manage.
The waste unusable lubricants or burnt oil cannot be disposed of in water or soil.
In this situation, to protect balance of the environment, in different countries of the world, these wastes are re-processed (re-refined) to produce quality base oil which is recognised by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA, USA).
The sector owners collect burnt oil or unusable lubricant (raw material). They process its re-refining plants locally.
The owners claimed that they are keeping a good contribution socially and environmentally by refining the item reducing the country's dependence on import through local production.
They also believe that it is continuously contributing to the economic development of the country in terms of meeting the necessary needs.
They also claimed to set up a backward linkage industry if it gets government support.
The country imports around 0.2 million tonnes of lubricant oil/base oil from several countries annually which involves a huge amount of foreign currencies.
After a period of time, this imported lube oil turns into polluted waste due to consumption in the country.
Earlier, the government gave waiver for encouraging supply of plastic waste, waste, locally collected scrap/ scrap from steel mills etc by deduction of tax at source.
But the lubricant re-fining sector has not been able to come to consideration of the facility which was deserved on the basis of justification for lubricant re-refineries.
When contacted, an official of the authorities concerned said, "We are currently verifying the plea."

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