Representations have been received from the trade that to facilitate fast processing of application, reduce interface with the Government officials and as a measure of procedural simplification, the facility of filing application through EDI mode (E-Commerce) and the digital signature mode has been extended to the exporters community. Now it has been brought to the notice that since the paragraph 4.12 of Handbook of Procedures, VoL.l stipulates that Exports/supplies made from the date of issuance of file number for an Advance Licence by the Licensing authority, may be accepted towards discharge of export obligation, the E-Commerce generated application number and date is not being accepted by the RLAs as the date of filing of application, leading to either rejection or imposition of late cut without taking into consideration the hardship/difficulty in timely submission of hard copy of the application to the RLA.

A similar matter was considered by the PRC during its meeting held on 14-01-05. On the basis of the decision taken therein, it is hereby clarified that in case of E Commerce application, the date on which E-Commerce application is submitted and E-Commerce file number is generated would be considered as the date of filing of application. However the hard copy of the application must be submitted to the concerned RLA within 15 days of filing E-commerce application. Suitable amendment would also be carried out in the Handbook of Procedures, Vol. I.

This issues with the approval of Director General of Foreign Trade.

Sd/-
(Tapan Mazumder)
Jt. Director General of Foreign Trade