Himachal losing export benefits

Himachal Pradesh is losing grants in crores under the ASIDE (Assistance to States for Developing Export Infrastructure and Allied Activities) scheme by the Centre.

This is because a majority of export houses here have manufacturing facilities in Himachal Pradesh but are headquartered in metros or outside the state.

Exporters quote the import-export code (IEC) of their headquarters instead of the location of the manufacturing facility.

As a result, export is getting credited to the state where the headquarters is situated rather than the state where the manufacturing facility is. As per the Federation of Indian Export Organisation data, Himachal Pradesh accounted for exports worth over Rs 2,000 crore in the last financial year.

But according to the state department data, the export from the state is quite less. The figures displayed by the Industrial Advisor to the Industries Rajinder Chauhan the export stood at Rs 861.09 crore. This considerably reduces the allocation to the state in lieu of exports as the export-oriented units (EOUs) fail to keep an account for their production.

This year, for improving infrastructure, the state has been granted Rs 6 crore under the ASIDE scheme by the Centre. The state government officials are of the view that allocation would have been higher if export houses were headquartered in the state. Industry Minister Kuldeep Singh, in an interaction with Business Standard, also admitted that the state was losing huge revenue due to this.

Currently, the state has 33,888 units in small sector and 369 in medium and large sector. Of the total, only 68 units are export-oriented.

The above issue was also highlighted in a seminar organised by the Federation of Indian Export Organisation (FIEO) in association with Baddi Barotiwala and Nalagarh and Parwanoo Industry Associations in Baddi.

The officials from the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), present in the seminar, asked the exporters to fill in the correct state code in the shipping bills ao that the state's exports could be credited to it's allocation.

Industralists urged the DGFT that they should be provided due guidance by the Ministry of Commerce as well as the Federation of Indian Exporters as they were not well conversant with this issue.

The industralists demanded change in the prevalent system, where the import export code should not be used to calculate the exports. Instead the place of manufacture of a product should be used to collect export data.