In a big support to exporters, the Central Government has decided to release Rs. 56,027 crore in FY21-22 itself in order to disburse all pending export incentives due to exporters.
This amount includes claims relating to MEIS, SEIS, RoSL, RoSCTL, and other scrip-based schemes that are related to earlier policies and the remission support for RoDTEP and RoSCTL for exports made in the 4th quarter of FY20-21.
As per Government claims, benefits would be disbursed to more than 45,000 exporters, out of which about 98 per cent are small exporters in the MSME category.
In a statement, the Government said that 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 crore), RoSL (Rs. 330 crore), RoDTEP (Rs. 2,568 crore), other legacy schemes like Target Plus, etc. (Rs. 4,831 crore).
This amount is over and above duty remission amount of Rs. 12,454 crore for the RoDTEP scheme and Rs. 6,946 crore for RoSCTL scheme already announced for exports made in this year (FY21-22).
The apparel sector would 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 31 December 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 Ministry of Finance to monitor provisioning and disbursement of the export incentives under a budgetary framework.
A decision to clear all pending export incentives within this FY itself despite other budgetary commitments arising out of the pandemic is with the objective of providing timely and crucial support to this vital pillar of Indian economy.
It should be mentioned here that time and again various trade bodies and industry leaders have urged to clear these funds. Leading apparel manufacturing cluster Tirupur has RoSCTL pending claim to region of Rs. 3,750 crore. RoSCTL benefits are pending since 1 January 2021. With the release of these funds, exporters will have more working capital.
Also Read: Clear ROSCTL pending claims expediently! Indian exporters urge Government
Apparel exporters have welcomed the Government’s decision. Dr. A. Sakthivel, Chairman, Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) said that it will help apparel exporters bag additional export orders for the coming festive season and thus help the country achieve its merchandise export target of US $ 400 billion.