The pharma exporters have urged the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) to refund the excise duty through Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) like online duty drawback and service tax refund. The online rebate claim will reduce hassles to the exporters and will be in line with government's vision of e-governance.

The exporters believe if the rebate can be claimed online through EFT, it will reduce the time of exporters and excise duty can be refunded directly into the exporters account through an online procedure.

In the present system, the exporters pay duty on goods moved out of the factory and then export the goods. Once proof of export is received from customs, they are presented to excise department for getting back payment of duty paid which is known as rebate claim.

To get back the payment of duty paid, exporters require to submit number of documents for rebate application. The rebate claims are supposed to be cleared within 90 days. If any query is raised on 89th day, then again 90 days are counted after submission of documents with a clearance of query.

The online rebate claim will reduce the time taken for document verification and manual intervention. Based on the online data, rebate claim can be directly transferred to the exporters account. This will definitely effect quick disposal of cases and at the same time will reduce corruption.

According to the exporters, when all data are online, asking for hard copy of documents and manual intervention can be done away with and it will also the boost the government's vision of e-governance which is aiming at a corruption free atmosphere and with efficient functioning of the government machinery.

The Pharmexcil has discussed the matter with the secretary of ministry of finance, he told that the matter can be taken up during the budget session since it involves commerce ministry as well as finance ministry.