Non-requirement of submission of Hard Copy of application at RAs for issue of Advance Authorisation (AA) & EPCG Authorisation - DGFT - Policy Circular No. 23/2015-20

Government of India Ministry of Commerce and Industry Department of Commerce Directorate General of Foreign Trade Udyog Bhawan, New Delhi Policy - 4 Division Policy Circular No. 23/2015-20 Dated: 15 May 2019 To All Regional Authorities of DGFT All Exporters/Members of Trade Subject: Non-requirement of submission of Hard Copy of application at RAs for issue of Advance Authorisation (AA) EPCG Authorisation Attention is invited to Para 4.02(ii) of HBP 2015-20 which explicitly states that Applicant shall upload documents as prescribed in ANF 4A , if any, at the time of online filing of application. No physical copy of application is required to be submitted to Regional Authority. However it has been observed that almost every RA asks for the hard copy of the application and Advance Authorisation/EPCG is processed on receipt of hard copy only, Main reason was that facility to upload documents in the online ECOM application Was not available. 2. To remove the time lag between online application and receipt of hard copy in the DGFT Regional Authority (RA), NIC has now created an 'upload document' facility in the Advance Authorisation EPCG ECOM modules, 3. Therefore with effect from 20th May 2019 , all exporters filing online AA EPCG applications will, in addition, need to upload supporting documents also as prescribed in ANF/FTP/HBP. With the use Of this facility, exporters will not be required to submit hard copy of the AA/EPCG application and its related documents to the DGFT RA. 4. RAs would examine/process such ECOM applications based on the information documents filed online by the exporter and issue AA/EPCG within the laid down timelines of 3 working days. 5. In cases where the basic prescribed documents have not been uploaded online by the exporter or in exceptional cases where additional document/information is needed for further clarity or decision making RA may issue an online deficiency letter. Exporter can log in the Online ECOM module and view the deficiency raised online. Although the exporter can submit the reply in writing at the RA counter/post but for a quick response from the RA it is desirable that exporter also submits the deficiency reply by email to the official email id of the concerned RA [with RA File no. in the subject line] along with necessary scanned documents as attachments 6. Exporters may note that, after issue of Advance Authorisation under Para 4.07 of the Hand Book of Procedures, 2015-20 (Self declared Authorisations where SION does not exist) it is now the responsibility of the applicants to send two (2) sets of complete application [along with the PDF Copy of AA, Appendix 4E, production/consumption data etc. and other related documents which will help in fixation of ad-hoc norms] directly to the FTDO of the concerned Norms Committee (NC) in the o/o DGFT, Udyog Bhawan, New Delhi-110011 for ratification/fixation Of the norms. Details of Norms Committee(s) along with products groups dealt by each Norms Committee are laid down in Para 4.06 (i) of Hand Book of Procedures, 2015-20 . In case, the application details are not made available by the exporter applicant to the concerned NC on time, the process of fixation of ad-hoc norms will get delayed. Non-availability of application with supporting documents beyond a reasonable period of say 2 months will lead to rejection of the Case by the Norms Committee. This issues with the approval of DGFT. (Vijay Kumar) Additional Director General, Foreign Trade (Issued from file no. 1/94/180/026/AM20/PC-4)