Strongly denying the finance ministry's contention, a spokesman of the confederation told The Financial Express that the entire EOU community should not be blamed for faults of a few units. In any case, a survey conducted by the confederation on the so-called DTA sale has exploded the "myth" that the units have been predominantly using their production for sale in the DTA and not exporting it, the spokesman explained.

CEU's sample survey of 46 leading EOUs has come to the finding that the average DTA sale by them in the past five years has been only 4.29 per cent against the 25 per cent level permitted in the exim policy.

The survey reveals that perhapsonly one unit could sell 22.7 per cent of its production value in the DTA.

There were four units which had a DTA sale of above 15 per cent, two units between 10 and 15 per cent, 8 units between 5 and 10 per cent and 13 units between one and five per cent.

Interestingly, there were 20 units which had DTA sale below one per cent.

This goes to prove that the facility of DTA sale conceded to EOUs a few years ago is a npn-starter. The intention was to provide a cushion to the units in case of a sudden shrinkage in world demand, quality and other parameters. Details of the survey have also been forwarded by CEU to the commerce ministry.

The reason why the EOUs have not been able to avail of the DTA sale facility is because such sale attracts excise and customs duties. With customs duties being always higher than the excise duties, the revenue department has been slapping customs duties on DTA sale.

Bowing to demands from the EOUs, a decision was taken nearly two years ago to slap excise duty on sale ofgoods in the DTA if they are "predominantly" made of indigenous materials.