FIEO sought intervention to resolve deadlock over exports benefits for garment and made ups: Saraf

Ludhiana: Highlighting the acute liquidity problem faced by Apparel and Made ups exporters, particularly those in MSME, Mr Sharad Kumar Saraf, President, FIEO said that the RoSCTL scheme was not implemented in entire 2019 and MEIS also stopped from 1/8/2019 for apparel and made-ups sectors. This is a fatal blow to the apparels and made-ups industry, which is one of the largest employment generation industry particularly supporting the women workers. Huge funds of exporters are now blocked under this scheme for no fault of theirs.
 
President FIEO said that no funds have been disbursed since the announcement of RoSCTL scheme from 7/3/2019 and MEIS from 1/8/2019. This amount itself is nearly Rs 6000 crores. Most of the apparel exporters are from MSME sector and some of them are already in the process of closure and default.
 
Exporters of these products were surprised to see the gazette notification from MoT dated 14/1/2020 announcing one time additional ad-hoc incentive of 1% to offset difference between RoSL & MEIS and RoSCTL from 7/3/2019 to 31/12/2019. This is completely contradictory to what was already announced by the Government and factored by the industry to maintain their competitiveness in view of fierce competition. Many of them have paid statutory taxes also on RoSTL and MEIS benefits said President, FIEO.
 
We are now informed that apparel exporters will not get 2% MEIS even though the announced earlier. It is very unfortunate that the commitments are being ignored. To make the matter worst, Mr Saraf said, DGFT is now demanding the refund of MEIS paid between 7/3/2019 and 31/7/2019. This is not only unfair but also legally untenable because the policy once announced cannot be changed retrospectively.
 
President FIEO added that the apparel industry has been subjected to tremendous hardship. In all fairness the government must honour the commitment made to the exporters. We are already fast loosing our business to other countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh etc. The industry would have grown atleast by 15% due to China – US trade war and now due to deadly virus in China observed FIEO Chief. He requested Textile Minister to intervene to address the plight of exporters.