Dr A Sakthivel, Chairman AEPC, thanked the Hon’ble Finance Minister, Hon’ble Commerce Minister and Hon’ble Textile Minister for announcing RoSCTL and other additional ad-hoc incentive to the Apparel Industry upto 1 percent of the FOB value on 14th Jan 2020. He has also requested for reinstatement of the MEIS benefits up to 31.03.2020
“The requested review of the retrospective withdrawal of the benefits will go a long way in ensuring the much needed growth of this sector and resultant creation of additional investment & employment, thereby fulfilling the dream of the Hon’ble Prime Minister vision in making India a $5 trillion economy”, he said.
In his letter to the Government, Chairman AEPC has indicated that “RoSCTL was announced w.e.f. 07.03.2019 and which was to be in addition to the MEIS benefits available to the Industry at the rate of 4percent (2percent+2percent)”.
Sharing the background of the schemes, Chairman AEPC explained that the industry had been given ROSCTL and MEIS simultaneously as each scheme had a specific purpose – MEIS for infrastructural/logistics cost disadvantage and RoSL/ ROSCTL for embedded State and central duties and taxes, not refunded through GST. In fact ROSCTL scheme was a result of recommendations of the govt. appointed Drawback Committee to study and recommend suitable rates for Refund of hidden and embedded taxes.
The Industry has already taken these benefits of RoSCTL and MEIS into account in costing with the buyers as also in their tax-planning. Hence, withdrawal of any of these benefits will have an immense effect on their working capital and for the majority in the MSME sector, it will impact the capacity to pay wages and salaries of workers and employers.
