MEIS Claims for
Wrongly Filled Shipping Bills for Exports between 1 April to
31 May 2015 Allowed
Customs EDI System from 1 June 2015 to Allow only Correctly Filled
Shipping Bills for MEIS
[DGFT Public Notice No. 40 dated 9th
October 2015]
Effect
of this Public Notice: Shipping
bills, where declaration of intent ‘Y’ has not been marked and ‘N’ has been
ticked inadvertently in the ‘reward item box’ while filing shipping bill in
Customs for exports made between 1.4.2015 to 31.5.2015, shall be transmitted by
CBEC to DGFT.
Subject: Declaration of intent under
MEIS Scheme.
DGFT has received various
representations from exporters and trade & Industry that many Custom House
Agents of exporters have inadvertently ticked “N” in the reward item box while
filing the shipping bills with Customs. Even though in many cases the item of
export is eligible for MEIS, as “N” has been ticked, such shipping bills have
not been transmitted to the DGFT system and exporters are therefore unable to
obtain / find these shipping bills on the system for submitting claims under
MEIS. It is also noted that the system of marking “Y” or “N” is not new and is
in operation since 2012. Since para 3.01 (g) of Hand
Book of Procedure to FTP (2015-20) does not allow manual feeding of EDI
shipping bill details, filling of such claims is not possible manually.
2. As
per para 3.14 of Hand Book of Procedure to FTP
(2015-20), all exporters while filling export shipments under all categories of
the shipping bills are required to declare the following intent to claim
benefit under MEIS:
“We intend to claim rewards under
Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS)”.
Declaration of intent is mandatory
with effect from June 1, 2015. CBEC has also issued a circular no. 14/2015
dated April 20, 2015, which requires mandatory declaration of intent from
1.6.2015 onwards. In EDI generated shipping bills, exporters are required to
tick mark “Y” in case they intend to claim benefits under MEIS and “N” in case
they do not intend to claim benefit under MEIS.
3. In light of these circumstances and to address
the matter, in exercise of powers conferred under paragraph 1.03 of the Foreign
Trade Policy (2015-2020) read with reference to para
3.14 of Handbook of Procedures of FTP 2015-20, the Director General of Foreign
Trade hereby allows the following procedure to be followed where exports have
been made between 1.4.2015 to 31.5.2015, and where the exporter has
inadvertently marked “N” in the “reward item box” and wishes to seek MEIS
benefits:
Exporters shall submit physical copies
of free shipping bills after electronic filing of application to RA at the time
of submission of application for MEIS rewards in these cases. RA shall grant
MEIS rewards after examination of such shipping bills in accordance with other
provisions of FTP/HBP.
4. From
01.06.2015, only those shipping bills, which are transmitted by Custom
Authorities to DGFT, shall be considered under MEIS.