Single window for export promotion soon

KOLKATA: The government has taken a final view on offering export promotion assistance to exporters through a single window instead of its dual schemes — Market Development Assistance (MDA) scheme and Market Access Initiative (MAI) scheme.

The new single window scheme — which will be an amalgam of MDA and MAI — will be put in place since the Eleventh Plan period, scheduled to begin next fiscal.

The merged scheme, for which the nomenclature is yet to be decided, will run alongwith another existing export promotion scheme — Assistance to States for Development of Export Infrastructure and Other Activities.

The commerce ministry has agreed in principle to merge MDA and MAI to make way for a single export promotion scheme, decided to be launched since the Eleventh Plan period. Work is underway to give a final shape to the new scheme, Jairam Ramesh, the minister of state for commerce, told ET.

The rationale behind merging MDA and MAI into a single scheme is to ensure better utilisation of fund which have been allocated under each of the existing export assistance scheme.

The twin schemes also serve the same purpose while providing assistance to individual exporters and export promotion councils for promotion and development of India’s export markets, he said.

According to Yogendra Garg, director, department of commerce, out of an allocation of Rs 55 crore under the MDA scheme in 2005-06, 75% of the fund or Rs 41 crore had been utilised in the year.

As far as MAI was concerned, the utilisation rate was almost 100% on an allocation of Rs 18 crore in the year. Out of allocations of Rs 55 crore under MDA and Rs 40 crore under MAI in 2006-07, so far Rs 20 crore and Rs 15 crore have been utilised under the respective schemes.

Once the new scheme is being put in place, there will be a single scheme for export markets development. As for creating and developing necessary infrastructure for exports, funds will continue to flow from the ASIDE scheme, added the minister.

The latter scheme provides an outlay for development of export infrastructure, which is distributed among the states, inter-alia, on the basis of their export performances in the previous year.