Clubbing of Advance Authorisation Allowed to Regional Authorities

[DGFT Public Notice No. 79 dated 13^th October 2011]

Subject: Amendment in the provision of Clubbing (Para 4.20) in HBP Vol I( 2009-14).

In exercise of the powers conferred under Paragraph 2.4 of the Foreign Trade Policy, 2009-14, the Director General of Foreign Trade hereby amends Para 4.20 of the

Handbook of Procedures Vol I (2009-14) with immediate effect. The paragraphs will read as follows:

Para	Proposed text
4.20	Facility of clubbing shall be available only for redemption / regularisation of cases and no further import or export shall be allowed. For this facility, authorisations are required to have been issued under similar Customs notification even pertaining to different financial years. However, in case of Authorisations issued on or after 1.4.2004, Advance Authorisations with different customs notification can be clubbed. Advance authorisation for annual requirement can also be clubbed with the advance authorisation.
4.20.1	RA, under whose jurisdiction authorisation is issued or DGFT(HQs) in other cases, shall consider a request in ANF 4D for clubbing all imports and exports of more than one Advance Authorisation provided imported inputs are properly accounted for as per norms. Value addition of the authorisations so clubbed shall be average of minimum value addition prescribed in FTP and Procedure laid thereunder, imposed on individual authorisations. Upon clubbing, authorisations shall, for all purposes, be deemed to be one Authorisation and thereafter shortfall, if any, shall be regularized in terms of para 4.28 of HBP v1.
4.20.2	DELETED
4.20.3	Only such Advance Authorisations shall be clubbed which have been issued within 36 months from the date of issue of the earliest Authorisation that is sought to be clubbed, whether such Authorisations are valid or not.
4.20.4	Upon clubbing wherever exports are accounted beyond the EO period of the earlier Authorisation, a composition fee of 0.5% of the shortfall in EO shall be levied.
4.20.5	Notwithstanding provisions of para 4.20.3 above, clubbing of the Authorisations issued during Exim Policy period 1992-1997 & 1997-2002 i.e., 1st April 1992 to 31st March, 2002 be allowed. This facility will be available only till 31st March 2012, thereafter no clubbing of Authorisations issued before 31st March 2002 shall be allowed. No clubbing of erstwhile Value Based Advance licences shall be allowed.

Effect of this Amendment: Regional Authorities (RAs) would now allow clubbing of Advance Authorisations. This is a decentralising measure.

The exporters will not be required to approach DGFT Headquarters in cases covered under the above categories.