New Delhi: Nearly three-month long farmer’s agitation in Punjab had hit the cargo movement and dented the country’s exports as agitating farmers blocked trains, roads and truck movement but the situation has improved in the last few weeks as cargo has started moving, said head of Indian exporter’s organisation in exclusive interaction with ETV Bharat.
“Initially the impact was very high, they stopped the trains, roads and trucks but fortunately the good sense prevailed and transportation started and the cargo is moving out. The imported cargo is also moving in,” said Sharad Kumar Saraf, President of Federation of Indian Export Organisations.
Saraf said three days back the Railways agreed to move the empty containers from ports to inland depots which is a positive step.
“Now we are not so badly affected by farmer's agitation,” Saraf told ETV Bharat.
Saraf, who last week attended a pre-budget consultation meeting with the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman as part of a pre-budget consultation, says exporters are passing through a difficult time due to the outbreak of Covid-19.
“We are facing challenges at various fronts and unless the government comes out with some tangible policies and support system, the export will continue to decline the way it is,” he said.
Saraf says the country’s exports are stagnant at around $330-335 billion for the last three years, which is at around 16% of the GDP whereas for a country like India, the share of exports in the country’s GDP should be at around 25 percent.
In the meeting with Sitharaman, exporters demanded that they should be given a duty-free slip equal to 10% of their export turnover for research and product development for overseas markets.
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Exporters face GST woes
Saraf said the exporters also raised the issue of delayed GST refunds and action against exporters like freezing of bank accounts or delay in GST refunds due to minor errors and without proper investigations.
“We also raised the issue of ease of doing business for exporters, bank accounts are frozen, GST is stopped, a container goes to port and it is marked as 'risky'. Now imagine your 12-18% GST is stopped so your all the cash flow is completely stopped,” Saraf said.
The FIEO also demanded roll back of the decision to cap the benefits of MEIS (Merchant Export from India Scheme) to Rs 2 crore per exporter.
In September this year, the government capped the export incentives given under the MEIS scheme to Rs 2 crore per exporter on outbound shipments made during the September-December period.
