Old wine, new bottle: $7-bn exporter refund old plan with Rs 9,000 cr added

The new program will subsume existing export incentives, for which the government had already penciled in a revenue hit of Rs 41,000 crore in July

India’s new measures announced on Saturday to revive a flagging economy through an aid to exporters isn’t as big a boost as the initial numbers suggested.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said a new tax refund program for exporters from January 1 will cost the government Rs 50,000 crore ($7 billion) in revenue annually. But it may only amount to an additional Rs 9,000 crore a year in benefits to exporters, a review of budget numbers show.

That’s because the new program will subsume existing export incentives, for which the government had already penciled in a revenue hit of Rs 41,000