A high level committee to revamp the Directorate General of Foreign Trade is mulling giving the directorate more teeth to undertake anti-dumping investigations and monitor imports of sensitive items.
Official sources told PTI here that the committee, which is expected to finalise its report soon, is also in favour of changing the focus of the DGFT from mere trade facilitation to providing export counselling and infrastructure.
"The committee is in favour of making DGFT a leaner but more effective organisation with focus on developing export infrastructure, undertaking anti-dumping investigations and facilitating exports particularly, from small and medium enterprises," they said.
The committee is also in favour of setting up a permanent cell within DGFT to monitor imports of sensitive items.
"The DGFT would have to coordinate more closely with directorate general of commercial intelligence and statistics for this purpose," they said.
Presently, a standing group consisting of the commerce, revenue, agriculture and small-scale secretaries functions as
a 'war-room' for tracking, collating and analysing data on 300 sensitive items which are of importance to the public.
Sources said the committee is also mulling allowing DGFT to undertake anti-dumping investigations since the designate authority - Directorate General of Anti-dumping and Allied Duties - does not have the requisite staff to undertake such investigations.
"Considering that officials posted to DGFT are experts in the field of trade and commerce, another option is to see how the office can be used to provide counselling or guidance to exporters," they said.
Sources said the committee had also favoured that computerisation of the organisation should be accelerated.
In addition to the above measures, the committee is also examining ways to develop a closer interface with the state governments.
"It has been seen that a number of policy announcements relating to exports have to be actually implemented at the state level. It is therefore important for the DGFT to have a representative in every state," they said.
However, the long-standing suggestion of the exporters to have a representative of the DGFT in the revenue and customs department has apparently not found favour with the committee.
Sources said there was a general view that having a DGFT official attached to the revenue and customs cell would not serve any additional purpose as there was already a lot of emphasis on closer interface between the finance ministry and the DGFT.
The committee was set up by then commerce minister Murasoli Maran last year.
The committee headed by former commerce secretary P P Prabhu also includes Shyamal Ghosh, former telecom secretary, and S B Mohapatra, textiles secretary.
