The newly-appointed director general of DoI dissolved a cash incentive determination committee led by Gopal Amatya, a senior official at DoI, to replace with another committee led by Dhruba Joshi, director of DoI, on Tuesday in the name of simplifying the incentive determining process. The new committee has three members whereas the earlier panel had six members.[break]
DoI, which is charged with fixing the cash incentive against the claims from exporters, recommended two firms for cash incentives so far. Gulmi Coffee Cooperative and Annapurna Coffee Industry, both organic coffee producers from the Gulmi district, have received cash incentives of over Rs 700,000 so far.
“Process of fixing the cash incentive amount has come to a halt in last three months. The companies recommended for incentives were selected before Dashain when a small technical unit of DoI was assigned to fix the amount. Formation of the new committee is for incentive purposes. The trick is to take undue advantage from exporters who are fed up with the lengthy process to claim the amount,” said a source at DoI.
The source said there is no need to form the committee as the existing guidelines are sufficient to facilitate the process. However, Dhruba Lal Rajbanshi, newly-appointed director general of DoI, claimed a three-member new committee headed by Dhruba Joshi, director of DoI, has been formed to simplify the distribution of cash incentives.
“We have reduced the number of members in the panel to three from six in the earlier panel so as to ensure prompt decision. Besides, the necessary documents to be submitted by the exporters have also been reduced and simplified,” added Rajbanshi.
He said the process of determining the cash incentives will gain momentum from next week as the panel is studying the applications from 28 firms.
However, Gopal Amatya , a senior official at DoI, who was heading the earlier committee, said DoI staff are confused on whether to adopt a flat percentage on export amount or calculate the amount in every batch of consignment. And, this dilemma is delaying the process. He claimed that existing guidelines for cash incentives lack clear-cut instructions as to how to determine the incentives.
Traders have been complaining against persisting delay in the distribution of the much-hyped cash incentive to the exporters despite the government having announced the scheme in last two consecutive budgets. Frequent changes of committees to determine the incentive amount have hampered the process.
As per the existing cash incentive scheme, exporters of goods with up to 30-50 percent value addition are entitled to get 2 percent of total export revenue as cash incentive.
Similarly, those with 50-80 percent value addition are supposed to get 3 percent while for over 80 percent value addition, 4 percent of the total export value of a particular product has been offered as cash incentive.
The government has so far allocated Rs 600 million for paying cash incentives in two consecutive fiscal years.
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