Centre working on mechanism to speed up GST refund for exporters: Minister

The central government is working on mechanisms to further speed up the GST refund process for exporters, a minister said on Sunday.

"We are evolving a mechanism. We are trying to further reduce time for refunds," Minister of State for Commerce & Industry C.R. Chaudhary told the media here on the sidelines of the inaugural session of the 186th AGM of the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce.

In a relief to exporters, the government recently announced that it would immediately refund exporters for the month of July and August through cheques from October 10 and October 18, respectively.

Following a GST Council meeting, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters that this would be an interim relief, and as a long term measure e-wallets will be created for all exporters by April 1, 2018, to carry forward the refund process.

Chaudhary said large scale reforms like GST will often lead to hiccups and inconvenience during inception but it will be beneficial in the long run.

"Rise in export data for September shows that initial hiccups of GST roll out is stabilising," he added.

--IANS

sgh/bdc/ssp/vd