The government has withdrawn the ad hoc tariff concessions on imports by public sector undertakings as part of its efforts to contain revenue leakages and to initiate greater transparency in departmental expenditures.
The guidelines issued internally in the revenue department of the finance ministry have already come into effect, revealed highly-placed sources in the government.
According to the officials, the revenue department has already communicated to the public sector undertakings that henceforth they will have to budget for the tariffs. The concessions would be extended only to charitable trusts and for other social purposes, they said.
The exceptions will be in the cases where projects are externally funded. The idea is that most of these projects are in the social sector and we wouldnt want to deny them funds, an official said.
At present, the finance ministry extends two kinds of exemptions. One is a general exemption on the end-use of the good and applies to all user groups. This is done through the issue of notifications. The other is an ad hoc exemption which targets both the commodity and the user group and is normally one-time in nature.
