Govt-appointed panel to finalise RoDTEP rates for SEZs by mid-June

A government-appointed committee headed by former commerce secretary GK Pillai will soon finalise the rates for the export-boosting scheme — RoDTEP — towards exports from special economic zones (SEZs) and export-oriented units (EOUs).

Remission of Duties and Taxes on Export Products (RoDTEP) scheme, which was rolled out last year, enables refund of duties and taxes at the central, state, and local level. It includes levies incurred in the process of manufacture and distribution of export products and currently not being rebated under any other scheme.

The department of commerce has excluded some sectors from the scheme mainly due to budget constraint challenges and some that were doing well. These ineligible categories included exports by SEZs, EOUs as well as sectors such as steel, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals.

“The work started in October. The GK Pillai committee is reworking the tax refund rates for SEZs and EoUs (under RoDTEP). Around 8,000 tariff lines will be covered. It will include export of steel, pharmaceuticals and chemical products from SEZs,” a person aware of the matter told Business Standard.

The committee is likely to submit its report to the department of commerce by mid-June. Thereafter, the commerce department will notify the rates, after discussing the need for an additional budget with the finance ministry's revenue department.

Exclusion of such categories from the scheme had irked exporters who had urged the government to enable tax refund for all sectors. They claimed that non-inclusion of SEZ units and EOUs under the scheme will make these units globally uncompetitive due to export of unrefunded taxes and duties.