Pending duty drawbacks worth Rs 250cr cleared

Our Economic Bureau

New Delhi, April 26 : PENDING duty drawback payments, worth Rs 250 crore, have been cleared in the first three weeks of April all over the country, with the Delhi zone accounting for Rs 51.7 crore.

According to Delhi zone chief commissioner (customs) SP Srivastava, a total of 7,000 pending cases had been cleared in April. Speaking at the inauguration of the drawback clearance month organised by the Delhi Exporters Association (DEA) on Thursday, Mr Srivastava promised that by May 15 all the backlog would be cleared.

Member (customs & export promotion) PN Malhotra said that instructions had been give to commissioners all over the country to take up in earnest the work of clearing drawback claims.

According to DEA, drawback claims of exporters worth Rs 1,200 crore was pending with the Centre. DEA president SP Agarwal said that exporters were getting very little drawback claims since October, and hence, a very heavy backlog of drawback had accumulated.

In 1999, and last year, pending drawback to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore was cleared in the clearance month.
This year, during the drawback clearance month, the DEA would also organise open house meetings between customs authorities and exporters so that problems could be solved across the table.