Procedural relief on duty drawback claims

K.R. Srivats

As a one-time respite, the Finance Ministry has allowed exporters to receive differential duty drawback without having to file supplementary claims. This benefit would be available only for the drawback shipments cleared through the EDI system from April 1 to July 17 this year.

The move to avoid paper work through an exemption from filing of supplementary claims comes close on the heels of the Government announcing a set of relief measures for exporters, in the wake of continuing appreciation of rupee in recent weeks.

Trade bodies like the Delhi Exporters’ Association (DEA) had represented that the differential drawback amount that has become due to exporters may automatically be credited to exporters’ account by the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system of customs houses.

On July 16, the Government had raised the rates of duty drawback on specified items to soften the rupee appreciation blow on exporters. This hike was given effect retrospectively from April 1 this year, resulting in duty drawback dues to certain exporters.

In the normal course, to avail themselves of drawback payments on retrospective basis, exporters would have had to make a supplementary claim and file five documents for each drawback export shipment.

The Delhi Exporters’ Association President, Mr S.P. Agarwal, noted that there are about 10 lakh cases of drawback exports shipment from April 1 to July 10 this year and this meant that about fifty lakh documents had to be submitted by exporters.

“This is a welcome step and we are thankful to the Government for accepting our request. It was not practical for exporters to file such a large number of documents and for customs to verify this and then give the differential drawback,” he said.