Govt likely to extend export benefits under RoDTEP scheme for pharma, steel

The government is expected to extend export benefits under the RoDTEP scheme to iron and steel, chemicals and pharmaceutical sectors beyond September 30, according to a senior official.

In December 2022, the government extended the benefits under the Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) Scheme to chemicals, pharmaceuticals and products of iron and steel till September 30 this year.

"As exports are not doing good for the last few months, there is a demand to extend it for about six months till March 2024. It is under consideration. We may extend it," the official said.

These three sectors were late entrants into the scheme that aims to refund duties, taxes and levies at the central, state and local level that gets added to the cost of products meant for exports.

This scheme is a replacement for the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) which ended last year.

At present, over 10,342 export items get the RoDTEP benefits.

The incentive is paid in the form of transferable duty credit scrip which can be used to pay import duties or sold in the market by exporters.

When the RoDTEP scheme was first announced in late 2020 and notified in August 2021, these sectors were not included because they were already performing well on the export front.

From last year, the country's exports started facing global headwinds due to global uncertainties and disruption in supply chains due to Russia-Ukraine war.

Drugs and pharmaceuticals accounted for 5.68 per cent of India's exports in 2022-23 at USD 23.5 billion.

Exports of iron and steel products were at USD 9.7 billion last year or 2.17 per cent of the total merchandise exports.

Share of chemicals in exports in the last fiscal was 3.33 per cent or USD 14.9 billion.

During April-July this fiscal, exports of organic and inorganic chemical declined 15.17 per cent to USD 9.1 billion.

Iron and steel exports rose 8.81 per cent to USD 9.9 billion while shipments of drugs and pharmaceuticals have shown a growth of 3.99 per cent to USD 8.71 billion.

However, in July pharma exports had declined.

In 2022-23 the RoDTEP supported USD 450 billion worth of exports at the cost of Rs 13,020 crore. While in 2021-22 the scheme aided USD 421 billion of exports and cost Rs 12,100 crore.