Single MEIS application soon to ease exporters

The Dollar Business Bureau
The CBEC chief said that there would be a single Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) application for all Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) ports soon.
“In accordance with the objective to boost the ease of doing business in India, Integrated declaration has been created under the Customs single window, where exporters would not be needed to get approval from various other agencies,” informed Najib Shah, Chairman, Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC) at a session organised by Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) in New Delhi on Friday.
According to a release issued by FIEO, the CBEC Chairman was quoted as saying that several Partner Government Agencies like Drug Controller, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), Animal Quarantine, Plant Quarantine, Textile Committee etc, are already on board and steps would be taken to include others also.
“Duty Drawback has been completely disbursed electronically and barely any claim is pending till date with Customs Authorities, especially with JNPT Customs,” said Shah.
The CBEC chief stated that ICEGATE (Indian Customs Electronic Commerce/Electronic Data Interchange Gateway) help desk receives a huge number of queries from exporters. Last year, the help desk received and attended over three lakh mails.
He advised that exporters should continue to write to this help desk about their issues for due consideration by the Department.
“Exports and imports play a vital role in the economy and CBEC has taken many initiatives to reduce the cost and time of transactions and to enhance the 'ease of doing business',” he added.