The Hindu : Business : Panel for revising drawback rates

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 16, 2005

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Business

Panel for revising drawback rates

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 15. The Union Government has set up a committee headed by Saumitra Chaudhuri, Member, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, to formulate the all-industry rates of duty drawback for the new fiscal. The committee is to submit its report by April 15.

The objective, according to a Finance Ministry statement here today, is to expand the coverage of the duty drawback scheme by including new items and provide adequate neutralisation of the customs and Central excise duties.

Under the duty drawback scheme administered by the Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance, exporters are provided with rebate of the customs and Central excise duties suffered on the inputs used in the manufacture of export products.

The offsetting of duties and taxes paid by exporters is based on the principle that such levies should not be exported as otherwise, it will render Indian exports uncompetitive in the international market.

To work out the various sectoral drawback rates, the committee is to interact with the administrative ministries, the export promotion councils (EPCs), the commodity boards, trade bodies and other stakeholders to elicit their views on the existing scheme, work out modalities for calculation of duty drawback and suggest the duty drawback rates for 2005-06. For this purpose, the committee may also conduct field visits to study specific production processes.

Apart from Mr Chaudhuri, the other two members of the committee are the former Textiles Secretary, S.B. Mohapatra, and T.R. Rustagi, Chief Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise (retired).

The Joint Secretary (Drawback), Ministry of Finance, is to serve as secretary of the committee.

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