Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has issued Public Notice 70/ 2015-20 dated 30th January,2019 to amend Para 4.38 of the Handbook of Procedure 2015-20 relating to Facility of Clubbing of Authorisations.
Key Points of the Public Notice are
(i) No clubbing of Authorisations issued on or before 31st March, 2009 shall be allowed.
(ii) Request for clubbing shall be made in ANF – 4C to the concerned RA who has issued the Authorisations.
(iii) Facility of clubbing of Advance Authorisations shall be available only for redemption / regularisation of such Authorisations and no further import or export shall be allowed.
(iv) Facility of clubbing shall also be available for Advance Authorisations for Annual Requirement issued during Foreign Trade Policy period 2009-14 and 2015-20, wherever exports and imports have taken place as per Standard Input Output Norms (SION) notified.
(v) Only Authorisations under which similar duty exemption has been availed shall only be allowed to be clubbed. Such Authorisations may pertain to different financial years.
(vi) Only such Authorisations shall be clubbed which have been issued within 18 months from the date of issue of earliest authorisation that is sought to be clubbed, whether such authorisations are valid or not. This is further subject to condition that upon clubbing only imports made within 30 months from the date of issue of earliest authorisation shall be considered. Any imports made beyond 30 months of earliest authorisation shall be regularised under Para 4.49 of the HBP.
(vii) Exports made during initial or extended EO period of individual authorisations (after payment of composition fee as per provisions of Para 4.42 of HBP) shall be clubbed.
(viii) Upon clubbing, if shortfall in value or quantity is noticed, the same shall be regularized under the provisions of Para 4.49 of HBP 2015-20.
(ix) Clubbing of Authorisations issued with different EO periods shall also be allowed.
(x) Inputs which are common in all authorisations shall be clubbed and duty free inputs shall be accounted for as per SION/ad-hoc norms fixed by NC. In other words all inputs covered in all authorisations need not be same.
(xi) Minimum value addition as prescribed in FTP and Procedures for the export product will be required to be maintained on clubbing.
(xii) After clubbing, Authorisations shall for all purposes, be deemed to be one Authorisation. The value addition would be calculated on the basis of total CIF and total FOB arrived at after clubbing the Authorisations.
(xiii) All cases clubbed, as per earlier provisions would not be reopened.
(xiv) No clubbing shall be permitted in respect of Authorisations where misrepresentation / fraud have come to the notice of RA. Further, no clubbing of Authorisations, where EODC/redemption letter has already been issued or adjudication orders have already been passed by RA/Customs Authority, shall be permitted.
(xv) Additional provisions for clubbing of Authorisations covered under Appendix 30A (issued under FTP 2009-14) / Appendix-4J (issued underFTP 2015-20) and Authorisations issued with EOP less than 18 months:
- Export obligation period of clubbed Authorisations shall be reckoned from the date of earliest import in any of the Authorisations proposed to be clubbed.
- Clubbing of such Authorisations shall be allowed provided all exports are completed within initial/extended Export Obligation period reckoned from date of earliest import in any of the Authorisations proposed to be clubbed.
Source: Directorate General of Foreign Trade
