AEPC has welcomed the government’s move to clear long-pending claims worth roughly Rs 3,000 crore since January under a so-called Rebate of State and Central Taxes & Levies (RoSCTL) scheme. The revenue department has approved the release of the RoSL benefits, which will, however, be in the form of scrips, instead of cash. Exporters will also be allowed to use the scrip for the payment of customs and central excise duties.

The revenue department has also asked the directorate general of foreign trade (DGFT) to release Rs 464 crore against pending claims under another scheme, Remission of State Levies, which was replaced with the RoSCTL programme — meant for compensating them for various state as well as central government impost — on March 7, 2019. Benefits under the RoSL were stuck for more than a year, triggering protests from the cash-strapped exporters.

The move comes at a time when the Covid-19 outbreak has already accentuated a slowdown in merchandise exports. Outbound shipments of garments shrank 4 per cent year-on-year in FY20 to $15.5 billion, aiding a decline in overall exports that contracted by close to 5 per cent in FY20.

However, to offer some relief to the exporters from the retrospective move, an earlier government order had said if the RoSCTL benefit between March 7 and December 31, 2019, was lower than the combined incentives under the MEIS and RoSL, the government would provide an “additional ad-hoc incentive” of up to 1 per cent of FoB value of exported products, with a cap of Rs 600 crore, for this period.