Giving a relief to
exporters community, the government on Thursday said it will release Rs 56,027
crore to exporters against pending tax refunds under different incentive
schemes for outbound shipments.
Illustration: Uttam Ghosh
The amount will be
disbursed to more than 45,000 exporters.
Briefing the media about
the decision, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that the Rs
56,027 crore, which is being released under various export promotion schemes,
is over and above duty remission of Rs 12,454 crore for the Remission of Duties
and Taxes on Export Products (RoDTEP) Scheme and Rs 6,946 crore for Rebate of
State and Central Levies and Taxes (RoSCTL) Scheme already announced.
"So in effect,
exporters will be cleared all their old dues plus another Rs 19,500 crore for
the current year. Both of which aggregating about Rs 75,000 crore as liquidity
will be made available to our exporters," he said adding all the amount
will be cleared this year.
This amount
includes claims relating to MEIS (Merchandise Export India Scheme), SEIS
(Service Exports India Scheme), RoSL (Rebate of State Levies), RoSCTL, other
scrip based schemes relating to earlier policies and the remission support for
RoDTEP and RoSCTL for exports made in the fourth quarter of 2020-21.
The amount of Rs 56,027
crore of arrears is for different export promotion and remission schemes: MEIS
(Rs 33,010 crore), SEIS (Rs 10,002 crore), RoSCTL (Rs 5,286 cr), RoSL (Rs 330
crore), RoDTEP (Rs 2,568 crore), other legacy Schemes like Target Plus etc (Rs
4,831 crore), it said.
He said that the move would
help maintain cash flow of exporters and meet their growing export demand and
also help the country achieve USD 400 billion target for this fiscal.
"This decision to
clear all pending export incentives within this financial year will lead to
even more rapid export growth in coming months," he said.
Service sector exporters,
including those in the travel, tourism and hospitality segments, will be able
to claim SEIS benefits for FY2019-2020, for which Rs 2,061 crore has been
provisioned.
The SEIS for 2019-20 with
certain revisions in service categories and rates is being notified.
This support would have a
multiplier effect and spur employment generation.
The apparel sector, which is
a major labour-intensive sector, will get past arrears under ROSCTL and ROSL,
and all stakeholders in the interconnected supply chains would be strengthened
to meet the festive season demand in international markets.
Export claims relating to
earlier years will need to be filed by the exporters by December 31, 2021
beyond which they will become time barred.
The online IT portal will
be enabled shortly to accept MEIS and other scrip based applications and would
be integrated with a robust mechanism set up by the ministry of finance to
monitor provisioning and disbursement of the export incentives under a
budgetary framework.
On container shortage and
high freight rate issue, he said an inter-ministerial meeting was held on
Thursday and "ideas have come, and that will be examined and studied by
different ministries".
Welcoming the move of
clearing pending tax dues, former President Federation of Indian Export
Organisations (FIEO) S K Saraf said that the delay in payments has
affected cash flow of exporters in MSME sector particularly.
"This payment will be
a great relief to exporters in these challenging times.
"I hope this payment
is made expeditiously.
"It will
save a lot of MSME from a certain extinction," Saraf said.
Sharing similar views,
Ludhiana Hand Tools Association President S C Ralhan said that the move would
help in promoting exports.
"Container shortage
and rising freight rates will also required urgent attention of the
government," Ralhan said.
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