The government on Thursday said it will release Rs 56,027 crore to exporters against pending tax refunds under different export incentive schemes.
The amount will be disbursed to more than 45,000 exporters, the commerce ministry said.
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.
The amount will be disbursed this year only, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal told reporters here.
Benefits will help sectors to maintain cash flows and meet export demand in international market, which is recovering fast this financial year, he said.
Further, the commerce and industry ministry said that the Government of India has decided to budget Rs 56,027 crore in 2021-22 itself in order to disburse all pending export incentives due to exporters.
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.
"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 Ministry of Finance to monitor provisioning and disbursement of the export incentives under a budgetary framework.
