While all industry bodies are aligning to post their representations to the Remission of duties and taxes on exported products (RoDTEP) scheme, the Indian Steel Association shared its representations to the RoDTEP Committee. The RoDTEP Scheme is expected to necessitate 8 to 10 per cent refunding of free on board (FOB) export price towards non-creditable taxes and duties. RoDTEP will replace the existing Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) which the government will discontinue by December 31 this year.

Numerous representations were made before revenue secretary, ministers of steel, commerce, finance and to the Prime Minister Office. The government under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), Ministry of Finance constituted a three-member committee with GK Pillai, Former Secretary, Government of India as chair and two other members to recommend ceiling rates under the RoDTEP scheme. 

First Meeting of RoDTEP Committee with Indian Steel Association took place on August 24, 2020. In order to have a common strategy of member companies, ISA organised meetings on August 21 and 22 to decide the stand of ISA and also identify a spokesperson to present point of view before the committee. Even a short meeting was held on August 24 to give a final shape before joining the virtual meeting.

The issues and concerns raised by ISA were well taken and a timeline of 4 weeks was also allowed for the collection and collation of the data for the members. Post meeting briefing and complete discussion on formats provided by the CBIC, Ministry of Finance for submission of the data of non creditable taxes and duties were also explained to all members and their officials of finance and taxation division. 

The meeting held on a virtual platform on August 25 was attended by 32 officials.

Some key concerns are those of domestic steel price rise factored due to anti-dumping duty on imports from Vietnam, China and Korea. The MSME engineering segment will be affected with this. It is also to see how RoDTEP turns up, satisfying varied steel requirements for imports and exports.