The thrust of these changes will be on consolidation of all the existing schemes with modifications, in addition to rationalisation of long-winding procedures in order to make things easier for the exporting community.

Hegde has had intensive interaction with export promotion

agencies/associations in the past few days and the expectation is that he may go all-out to resolve some of the pressing problems facing them --whether they relate to refund of duty drawback or fixation of new credit rates under the duty entitlement passbook scheme (DEPB).

Senior officials in the commerce ministry, including the director-general of foreign trade, have been burning the midnight candle in the past week to convince their counterparts in the finance ministry on the need for lowering, forinstance, the threshold limit of Rs 20 crore to Rs 1 crore under the duty-free export promotion capital goods (EPCG) scheme, abolishing the stranglehold of physical contols on export-oriented units/export processing zones and drastically cut down the time for issuing advance licences.

The Rs 20 crore limit under EPCG scheme was lowered to Rs 5 crore when the policy was announced on March 31 last year after protracted discussions with the finance ministry. Since then, there has been a demand from the small-scale sector for reducing it to Rs 1 crore to enable them to take advantage of it.

In the commerce ministry's perception, the reduction in the limit to Rs 1 crore to benefit the leather, garment, carpet sectors will not entail any revenue loss to the finance ministry. On the other hand, the reduction will help the country earn additional foreign exchange through a higher level of export obligation envisaged in the scheme.

New credit rates for new export products under the DEPB scheme was withheld inthe wake of the Parliamentary elections in February.

Then the revenue department had stated that these rates would be announced on April 1. Indications, however, are that these rates will now be notified separately by the finance ministry on Monday.

As per India's communication to the WTO in May 1997, a number of items subject to quantitative restrictions were to be shifted from the restricted to the free (OGL) list and from the restricted to the special import licence (SIL) list. A view on this count not be taken due to the elections. Commerce ministry officials refuse to be drawn into any discussion on this aspect, saying that it is still under review. Needless to say, India will have to move a large number of the items from the restricted to the free list and from the restricted to the SIL list in keeping with the agreement reached with Australia, European and other countries a few months ago on phasing out quantitative restrictions over a six-year period.

There are still about 3,000 items in therestricted list though a number of items were shifted from the restricted to the free and SIL lists in the revision effected in February last year.