The Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) rates announced recently by the Indian government were not as per the expectation of handicrafts exporters as the sector was expecting rates (5-7 per cent) comparable with the Merchandise Export from India Scheme (MEIS), according to Raj Kumar Malhotra, chairman of the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH).

The RoDTEP rates offered are in the range of 0.01 per cent to 2.4 per cent for the handicrafts sector.

The council has already wrote to finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and minister for textiles, commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal regarding enhancing of rates, Malhotra said.

As the RoDTEP rates offered are very low, a memorandum day was organised on September 1 across various crafts clusters of the country to collectively put forward a representation for enhancing the RoDTEP rates for the handicrafts sector, he said in a press release.

Handicrafts exporters in various clusters will submit a memorandum to the member of parliament from their regions or mayor or district magistrate to forward their demand to the central government.

The RoDTEP scheme would refund to exporters the embedded central, state and local duties/taxes that were so far not being rebated/refunded and were, therefore, placing exports at a disadvantage.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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