New Delhi, May 11 (KNN) The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has implemented the Target Plus Scheme for export promotion in line with the Supreme Court’s decision.

The Union Cabinet had last month approved the implementation of Supreme Court’s judgment on eligibility under the Target Plus scheme for exporters that will lead to settling of claims as per original provisions of the foreign trade policy (FTP).

The settlement of exporters’ claims will have a revenue implication of Rs 2,700 crore, according to an official release.

The benefit is being extended to all the applicant exporters eligible as per provisions of the initially notified TPS Scheme under FTP for the year 2005-06 and as per provisions of FTP 2004-09 throughout the country, an official release had said.

In other words the scope of benefits under the TPS was narrowed by the DGFT during that period after the scheme was implemented but the exporters were not satisfied and filed an appeal arguing that the new provisions could not be applied retrospectively which the apex court upheld.

The Supreme Court in a judgment on the Target Plus scheme in 2015 said that the Centre’s notifications making certain products ineligible and reducing the rates could not be applied retrospectively and they would be effective only from the date of their issue.

The claims will be considered as per original notifications till the date of the two new notifications.

DGFT issued a notification in this regard on May 8, 2017 and instructed all its Regional Authorities to re-examine all the eligible claims/applications pending for TPS 2005-06 for issue of the balance claim/recovery of wrong claims as applicable after ensuring due diligence and ensuring genuineness of the exports.

The Target Plus Scheme as a part of Foreign Trade Policy was announced on 31.08.2004 w.e.f. 01.04.2004.

The objective was to accelerate growth in exports by rewarding Star Export Houses with minimum threshold export turnover of Rs.10 crore in the previous year.

The scheme provided for three slabs of entitlement of duty credit scrips 5%, 10%, 15% based on the following 3 conditions:

Where the percentage incremental growth of exports was above 20% but below 25% the duty credit entitlement was 5% of the incremental growth.

Where the percentage incremental growth was above 25% but below 100% the duty credit entitlement was 10% of the incremental growth.

Lastly where the percentage incremental growth was above 100% the duty credit entitlement was 15%.

The Scheme was in operation for the years 2004-05 and 2005-06.