The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has asked the Customs authorities to clear for shipments the consignments of broken rice that entered the container freight station (CFS) before the ban was imposed on the export of the cereal. Though the government has not specified the quantity held up at CFS, trade sources said it could be around 15,000 tonnes and these are over and above 3.97 lakh tonnes (lt) of quota issued last month.
In a notification issued on November 7, the DGFT said, “where broken rice consignment has been handed over to the Customs before this notification (banning export) and is registered in their system…with verifiable evidence of date and time stamping of these commodities having entered the Customs Station prior to September 8,” shall be allowed.
It has also asked the Customs to ensure that these are shipped by November 30.
On October 12, the DGFT announced that 3.97 lt of fully broken rice would be allowed for exports till the end of the current fiscal. Two days later, it issued procedures and had stipulated that online applications between October 16 and October 20 will only be considered for issuing the permits. It had asked exporters to file a separate application for each of the valid letter of Credit (LC) opened before September 8, when the government banned the shipment of broken rice.
The country exported 89.57 lt of non-Basmati rice worth $3.21 billion (₹25,191 crore) in the first half (April-September) of the current fiscal, up by 9 per cent from 82.26 lt worth $2.97 billion in the year-ago period. However, there is a drop in price realisation by exporters to $358/tonne from $361/tonne.
