LAHORE - The FBR's Inland Revenue Enforcement Network (IREN) has launched effective and successful raids against the locally manufactured tax-evaded and counterfeit and foreign smuggled cigarettes during the last one year.

So far, an estimated 1.63 billion non-duty paid cigarette sticks and raw material of illicit sector worth billions of rupees have been seized throughout the country by the IREN that was established last year to take on illicit tobacco trade.

The FBR's field formations including Intelligence and Investigation-Inland Revenue (I&I-IR) and Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) are operating in liaison with IREN against the illicit tobacco manufacturers, suppliers and traders in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Quetta, Peshawar, Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Sahiwal, Attock, Muzaffarabad, Mirpur and other major cities of Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) that were regarded as hubs of illicit tobacco.

Major raids resulted in the confiscation of around 32 million sticks of non-duty paid cigarettes and another 10.15 million non-duty paid cigarette sticks in respective operations in Peshawar, over 5.35 million and 1 million sticks in separate raids in Sahiwal, over 1 million non-duty cigarette sticks in Hyderabad, around 0.8 million non-duty paid cigarette sticks in Karachi and recovery of similar illicit chunk of cigarettes from other cities.

Even though crackdown against illicit cigarettes is seen as a major headway against pervasive tobacco black market, experts believe that much needs to be done to achieve the desired objectives. "Huge price gap between the legal and tax evaded cigarettes is one of the key reasons of the increased demand for cheap tax evaded cigarettes widely available across Pakistan", the expert said.

"Due to the heavy presence of cheap illicit cigarettes in Pakistani markets, the total cigarette consumption has not reduced and has remained stable amidst easy access for consumers to these cigarettes", the expert added.