CALCUTTA, Mar 9: The centre plans to issue a tradable and encashable bond to be issued against the payment of excise and customs duties and a fast-track scheme to refund input-level taxes to exporters.Sources in the union commerce ministry said that the proposal has come from the director general of foreign trade (DGFT) NL Lakhanpal to boost exports.
The sources say the bond will have the same status as a special-import licence (SIL) or a duty-free entitlement-passbook scheme, which exporters can sell after paying sales-tax.
Lakhanpal said that these schemes were being discussed in the directorate, but nothing concrete had emerged as yet. "We are trying to work out all sorts of measures to find out ways of helping exporters. These two schemes were also in our discussions. Nothing has been finalised yet," he said.
"The idea has been formulated by Lakhanpal himself. The bonds will be issued by the union ministry of commerce to exporters after they pay the customs and excise duties for the importsneeded for manufacturing the export item.
These bonds can later be traded or even encashed," the sources added. According to them, the DGFT also plans a scheme where all input-level taxes paid by exporters for their imported inputs will be refunded within 48 hours of export.
