New Delhi, Sep 1 (IANS): The Centre has capped the benefit under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) at Rs 2 crore per exporter for the period of September 1 to December 31, 2020.

In a notification on Tuesday, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that the ceiling may be subject to further downward revision to ensure that the total claim under the scheme for the of September to December 2929 does not exceed Rs 5,000 crore, the total allocation by the government.

Further, there will be no change in the coverage of MEIS and the applicable rates.

New Import-Export Codes (IEC), obtained on or after the date of the notification of the above changes, will be ineligible for submitting any MEIS claim for exports made with effect from September 1, 2020.

According to the government, 98 per cent of the exporters who claim MEIS will be unaffected by the changes and less than 2 per cent are likely to be affected, as per analysis of claims in the relevant period of 2018-19.

Unaffected exporters who have already factored in MEIS in the pricing of their products do not face any change or uncertainty since neither coverage of products nor rates of MEIS will be changed.

Further, as per the Commerce Ministry, genuine exporters are protected and allowed to claim benefits for exports in the period and the possibility of fraud by taking a new Importer Exporter Code (IEC) to circumvent the cap is avoided.