Banks should not hold up crediting exporters money due to fault of ICEGATE
We have received a system generated email from the DGFT alleging non-fulfillment of export obligation (EO) against many of our advance authorisations and EPCG authorisations issued between 2002 and 2007. We do not have any pending EO against these authorisations. It is too difficult to retrieve records in respect of authorisations issued 15-20 years back. We understand that we are required to preserve records only for 2-3 years from the date of redemption. So, please let us know how the government can demand such records and what we should do.
The government officers have the powers that they use or misuse depending on various factors/situations and there is no accountability in such matters. So, I suggest you better focus on compliance. You are right that the records pertaining to such authorisations need not be preserved after 2-3 years of redemption but you must and I think you would have preserved the EODC issued by the JDGFT. You may submit the same to the JDGFT and request closure of the matter.
You may also refer to the DGFT Trade Notice no.1 dated April 6, 2023 asking the regional authorities to update the EODC issued in the EODC online monitoring system for advance/EPCG authorisations and asking the exporters to verify the EODC status in the online system and submit the EODC details of redeemed authorisations to the JDGFT for updating. Apparently, EODCs issued manually have not been updated in the online system.
