Exports: Govt under active consultation for early finalisation of RoDTEP guidelines, rates: Piyush Goyal

The government stopped the Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies (RoSCTL) on January 1, 2021. The Department of Commerce and Finance is under active consultation for early finalization of the Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) scheme guidelines and remission rates for export items, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal told Rajya Sabha MP and former Union Minister Suresh Prabhu. The Home Textile Exporters’ Welfare Association had approached Prabhu to urge Piyush Goyal and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to declare RoDTEP rates to support exporters and cater to the demand for their products in Europe and the US in the post-Covid period. The RoDTEP scheme, which had replaced the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) on January 1, 2021, was created for reimbursement of taxes, duties, and levies at the central, state, and local levels, which were earlier not refunded but incurred in the process of manufacture and distribution of exported products.

“I would like to inform you that a RoDTEP Committee was set up in CBIC to determine remission rates under the scheme for export items. The report of the Committee, along with recommended rates, has been received in the Department of Commerce recently and is under examination,” Goyal said in a letter to Prabhu on April 30, 2021. He added that the Department of Commerce and Department of Revenue are under active consultation for early finalization of the RoDTEP scheme guidelines and notification of rates for items, including items from the Home Textiles sector, that are decided to be included for coverage and would depend on many factors including the budget available for the RoDTEP scheme.

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In a letter to Sitharaman in January, Prabhu noted that while the rates are yet to be decided, the government had already stopped the Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies (RoSCTL) from January 1, 2021. “Though the exporters were also assured that this will continue till its merger with RoDTEP or March 31, 2021,” the letter read. Last month, Financial Express reported that the government is holding back export benefits worth at least Rs 35,000 crore under MEIS, including sizeable funds traceable to FY20, according to trade sources. Under the scheme, which ceased to exist on January 1, the government had approved Rs 39,097 crore for FY20 and Rs 15,555 crore for the first three-quarters of FY21. However, exporters had said that a bulk of this amount is yet to be released, ostensibly due to the pandemic hitting the Centre’s resource mobilization.