Bankers had moved the RBI with the suggestion that the central bank should do away with the one-time concessional export financing scheme at 6.5 per cent (on incremental exports over and above the base year level in 1997-98) and instead bring down the export refinance rate on all incremental exports to 9 per cent with the base year being fixed in February 1992.

Bankers, who attended the meeting with the RBI on Saturday, aired problems regarding the draft operational details of the scheme. The RBI called the meeting of senior bankers to access the response to the draft guidelines."The RBI said that it is averse to a cut in the export credit refinance rates now," a banker who attended the meeting said.

"Operational problems regarding the base year continue to remain. It will be difficult for any exporter to achieve this sort of a targetto qualify for the concessional export credit," a banker who attended the meeting, chaired by RBI deputy governor Jagdish Capoor, told The Financial Express.

Exporters will meet Capoor on Tuesday to put across their points of view on the issue. Exporters have already said that the concessional scheme is of no help to them. The Federation of Indian Exporters Organisation (FIEO) has said that it would be difficult to achieve the level of incremental exports to qualify for the concessional credit, especially when the export growth rate has been less than impressive in the recent past.

Bankers have expressed fears that large export houses will float "dummy companies" to avail of the concession which will create problems like risky loans. Federation of Indian Exporters Organisation, however, maintains that only small export houses will be able to avail of the credit while large houses will find it difficult to achieve that turnover.

The apex bank had said that the draft operational details will bealtered, if required, after discussions with exporters and bankers. The scheme will be finalised and issued to banks by July 10.

According to the scheme, concessional export rupee credit (at 6.5 per cent) will be operational only for a period of 18 months - from July 1, 1998, to December 31, 1999. The 18-month period will be divided into two sub-periods of nine months each. The first sub-period will cover the shipments made from July 1998 to December 1999 and the second sub-period the shipments made between April 1999 and December 1999.