Govt to issue fresh guidelines for brand rates

new delhi: the government will issue fresh guidelines for brand rates, including permitting self certification, when it unveils the ''all industry rates for drawback'' in june this year. this is a part of its efforts to reduce the time period for fixation of these rates. the finance ministry has also issued instructions to all the customs houses to observe april 15- may 15 as ''arrears clearance month'' for clearing all pending cases of duty drawback of exporters, a senior finance ministry official said on wednesday. "we will be bringing out a new policy in case of brand rates under which we will allow self-certification within 15 days. presently the time taken to fix these rates extends from three to six months," joint secretary (drawback) in the finance ministry ss renjhen said here. speaking on the sidelines of a seminar organised by assocham, he said under the present policy an exporter has to make an application, following which a certification report is obtained from the field agencies that is the central excise offices. "we will allow self certification which will be followed by a comprehensive post audit," he said, adding that exporters found to be giving wrong information or misdeclaring will be out of the scheme. renjhen said so far only selected exporters including private limited companies and status holders were allowed to fix rates on the basis of self certification. now the facility would be extended to all exporters, he added. commenting on the drawback rates, he said that exporters should expect some modifications since the rates always reflected the changes made in customs and excise rates in the budget. on the issue of pending drawback, he said that efforts would be made to clear all pending cases by may 15, 2002. "last year also we have cleared duty drawback worth rs 1000 crore within one month," he added.