• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

G. Gurumurthy

To facilitate payment for the e-application/approvals, the DGFT is seeking a model through tie-ups with banks.

Tirupur , Oct. 8

THE Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) is hopeful of putting in place its system for e-approvals in another two or three months for filing/approvals and licensing of exporters.

To start with, the DGFT will start issuing the IC (import/export code) online before the current calendar year-end. According to Mr L. Mansingh, the DGFT, his office would want to start off the online approvals with a simple process as that of issuing the IC so that it would not hit any glitch initially.

To facilitate payment for the e-application/approvals, the DGFT is seeking a payment model through tie-ups with specific banks.

"Maybe, we will be able to take up other approvals/licensing such as the DEPB certification in the second phase because the verifications by other participating agencies such as the Customs will be involved in these," Mr Mansingh said on the sidelines of the India Knit Fair being held here.

The DGFT, who earlier inaugurated the three-day knitwear fair for the winter collection on Wednesday, however, ruled out opening DGFT branch offices anywhere including in Tirupur, because the networking for e-filing and approvals has "rendered the physical presence of the DGFT redundant".

Mr Mansingh's remarks came in the wake of a request from the Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA) President, Mr A. Sakthivel, who sought an extension of the DGFT's Coimbatore office to be located at Tirupur to meet the growing volume of exports from the region.

He said the bottom line for his department was to bring down the consumption cost for the export sector so that it would result in lower transaction cost and increasing competitiveness. The DGFT felt that the shift in emphasis from promoting special export zones (SEZs), as originally addressed in the 2002-'07 Exim Policy, to encouraging naturally evolved export clusters was partly to address the issue of retaining the competitiveness of cluster-based exporting sectors such as Ludhiana, Tirupur and Panipat.

It was also felt that setting up newer SEZs would not by itself bring any faster export growth rate. The idea was that the Government would not directly involve itself in these clusters but encourage local industries through facilitation roles.

As for the demand from the knitwear exporters to expedite Central assistance for infrastructure development of Tirupur under the assistance to states for infrastructural development for exports (ASIDE) and market access initiative (MAI) schemes, Mr Mansingh said the three proposals received from the TEA were with the Commerce Ministry. But as these were awaiting the Union Cabinet's approval, his office could not initiate action.

The TEA has drawn up a four-lane link road project to facilitate greater road connectivity to the knitwear town with the nearby two national highways — NH-47 and NH-67 — which would render smooth movement of shipments to and from Tirupur.

Similarly, the Tirupur exporters have proposed a common brand/warehousing schemes. These projects are to get support from the ASIDE/MAI schemes of the Commerce Ministry.

The three-day knit fair, the 17th edition in the India Knit Fair series, has drawn entries from nearly 50 knitwear labels from across the country.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
Indiacom bags contract for phone directory

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line