In line with the commitment of the Government to liquidate all pending GST refunds, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs ( CBIC ) has successfully concluded refund fortnight cum special drive from 15th March 2018 to 31st March 2018.
During the period, all field formations of CBIC worked hard to provide refund relief to the exporters. Special refund cells manned by experienced staff were put in place throughout the country. The exporter awareness campaigns using both print media and social media were carried out so that the benefit can be extended to maximum exporters. All field formations were tasked to go the extra mile in order to facilitate the sanctioning of refunds. The Circulars, Instructions etc were issued by CBIC to clarify the issues which threw new challenges while sanctioning of refunds.
The success of these efforts is visible in the number of refunds sanctioned during this period. By the end of 31st March 2018 another Rs. 4265 crore IGST refund has been sanctioned in the refund fortnight taking the total tally to Rs. 9604 crore. Total 2,73,017 Shipping Bills with the payment of IGST have been filed by the exporters till 31st January 2018. The number of Shipping Bills disposed of till 31st March 2018 is 2,28,829 which is about 83% of those Shipping Bills filed till January end. The eligible IGST claims transmitted by GSTN to Customs of the period till 31st January 2018 are of Rs 10,720 crore, out of which Rs 9,604 crore have been sanctioned which is about 89.6% of those eligible claims transmitted by GSTN.
As regards to ITC refunds, Rs. 1,136 crore has been sanctioned during the special drive making the total figure of ITC sanctioned equally to Rs. 5,510 crore by end of this fiscal. As per the latest available data:
Thus, in all, Rs 9,604 crore (IGST refunds), Rs. 5,510 crore (ITC refund by Centre) and Rs 2,502 crore (ITC refund by States) all totalling to Rs 17,616 crore has been sanctioned.
Apart from this, an amount of Rs 16,680 crore duty drawback has been disbursed to exporters during the period from 1.7.2017 to 31.03.2018. An amount of Rs 1,833.25 crore approx. has been disbursed to exporters against RoSL claims during the financial year 2017-18.
The momentum gained during this fortnight would be carried on in future. The CBIC is dedicated to sanction all the legitimate refund claims of exporters. The efforts are being made to resolve those issues which are still pending in consultations with GSTN.