The BBPSS leaders demanded cancellation of the compulsory pre-shipment inspection (PSI) system for importing books and withdrawal of duty on newsprint import in the proposed budget for the FY2004-2005.

They said the new duty will raise the price of books that will, in turn, hit the poor students hard.

"On the one hand, the government is saying no VAT has been slapped on book supply and sale but the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is issuing letter to us for paying VAT on the other," said M Abu Taher, president, BBPSS at a press conference in the Jatiya Press Club.

Taher said import cost has notably increased because of import tax and compulsory PSI system, creating complications in the import process. The customs authorities always keep the imported books under 'Other Books' category and charge 15 percent tax.

He said though tax has been lifted from text, reference and religious books, the customs authorities consider only medical and engineering books as textbooks. They don't consider dictionaries and books on arts and social sciences as reference and textbooks and compel the importers to pay taxes, making import more expensive.

The absence of a list of text and reference books according to syllabus of different government and private universities, technical institutes and other educational institutions is also making it difficult for the pre-shipment inspection agencies to identify which are textbooks and which are not, he pointed out.

"That's why they make mistakes in identifying tax-free or tax-imposed books."

M Nazmul Karim, another BBPSS leader, said because of the import tax imposed by the government in 2002, import of books made a 50 percent fall in the last one year. The PSI system is the main obstacle to importing books, he added.