Government of India
Ministry of Commerce and Industry
Department of Commerce
Directorate General of Foreign Trade
Udyog Bhawan, New Delhi

Trade Notice: 36/2015-2020

Dated: 09^th October, 2019

To,

Members of Trade and Industry
All Regional Authorities (RAs) of DGFT
All Customs Authorities
EPCs/FIEO

Sub: Issue of Late Cut being imposed by the system while applying MEIS on reactivated shipping bills

This Directorate has been receiving multiple representations from the members of the trade and the EPCs regarding the difficulties being faced by exporters, when a claim is being made by the exporters for shipping bills, which have been re-activated in the E com module. The trade has reported that under the current online MEIS application mechanism, the system is applying late cut based on the second submission date and not counting the date of first online submission of the applied shipping bills [from the relevant first/earlier application]. Many such cases have also been decided in the PRC waiving late cut when exporter applies for the second time on the basis of the re-activated shipping bills.

2. In order to address this issue of imposition of higher late cut by the system for re-activated shipping bills, members of the trade and the RAs may take note of the steps as mentioned in the sequence below:

i. The applicant firm will create a new Ecom application number for the re-activated shipping bills for which MEIS is intended to be claimed. Exporters may note that at the time of generation of the new Ecom number, the online system may show the applicable late cut as on the date of generation of new number (100%, 10%, 5% and 2%, as the case may be for each shipping bills).

ii. The firm would not submit this new/revised application after building the Ecom application and getting the new Ecom number and instead is required to register a request at contact@DGFT (under a newly created dropdown ” MEIS for reactivated shipping bills”) to remove late cut for the shipping bills and mention the E com application number.

iii. On receipt of such request, the NIC technical team at DGFT HQs would a) edit the late cut fields in the application at the back end ; b) convert the application to ‘Manual’ mode and thereafter inform the firm to submit the file to the concerned RA online without making any other change in the application. The communication from/to the exporter would be through the mechanism of contact@dgft only and no separate instructions would be sent to the applicant firm.

iv. The applicant may then a) submit the MEIS application online for the relevant Ecom after submission of fees online and b) thereafter, also submit a manual/paper request to the concerned RA quoting the new File number (corresponding to the submitted Ecom number) along with a list of Shipping Bills and the corresponding rejection/deficiency letters issued by the RA mentioning the File no(s) in which the relevant shipping bills were disallowed earlier.

v. RA would then examine and process the application received manually, and imposes appropriate cut percentage in the E-com module’s relevant field for each shipping bill. This late cut imposed by the RA will be based on the date of submission of each shipping bill(s) in its first submission file (earlier file). RAs must not allow MEIS benefits under this mechanism for shipping bills, in which MEIS was earlier rejected/ dis-allowed on account of “mis-classification” or where –Declaration of Intent” was missing in the shipping bills.

vi. RAs would then issue the scrip online as per the current procedure.

3. Difficulties, if any, in implementation of these provisions may please be brought to the notice of this Directorate immediately.

4. This is issued with the approval of the competent authority.

[F.No.01/61/180/114/AM20/PC-3]

(Deputy Director General of Foreign Trade)