In an endeavour to resolve complaints or trade disputes relating to international trade and to create confidence in the business environment of India, a mechanism to address such issues has been provided in Chapter 8 of the Foreign Trade Policy/Handbook of Procedures, 2015-2020. These largely relate to

a) Complaints received from foreign buyers in respect of poor quality of the products supplied by exporters from India;

b) Complaints of importers against foreign suppliers in respect of quality of the products supplied; and

c) Complaints of unethical commercial dealings categorized mainly as non-supply/ partial supply of goods after confirmation of order; supplying goods other than the ones as agreed upon; non-payment; non-adherence to delivery schedules, etc.

2. Up to now such complaints/Trade Disputes are being filed, received and processed manually. Now an Online module has been created to facilitate filing and tracking of these Quality Complaints/Trade Disputes. It has been decided that with effect from 11/02/2019, all such complaints should be filed online as per the following protocol:

FOR THE COMPLAINANT

(i) Go to the DGFT website www.dgft.gov.in>QuickLinks >File Quality/Trade Grievances>fill Online Application Form.

(ii) Upload documents related to the quality complaint/trade dispute, wherever required [maximum 5MB size documents in pdf format].

(iii) Submit Online Application Form to the jurisdictional RA of DGFT/SEZ [this jurisdiction should be ascertained by the complainant, with respect to the Indian entity against whom the complaint is being made or with respect to the Indian complainant where the complaint is being filed against a foreign entity, as per Appendix 1 of Handbook of Procedures http://dgft.gov.in/sites/default/files/1A_0.pdf ].

(iv) On submission, a Unique Reference Number (URN) starting with ‘Q’ will be generated and sent to the email id of the complainant. Please make sure that the email id is functional as all future correspondence will be made on this id only.

(v) The complainant, at a future date, can also provide additional material/correspondence to the DGFT RA/SEZ. While making any future correspondence with the DGFT RA/SEZ to whom the Online Application has been submitted earlier, the URN must be quoted invariably in the subject header of the email.

(vi) A link ‘View Status’ is also available for the complainant to check current position of the complaint at “http://dgftebrc.nic.in.8080/TradeDispute”

FOR THE DGFT RA/SEZ WHERE ONLINE APPLICATION IS SUBMITTED

(vii) On receipt of the quality/trade complaint, the concerned DGFT RA/SEZ, after logging into the Online Module, on a regular basis, will take necessary steps as per guidelines laid down in this regard in the Foreign Trade Policy/Handbook of Procedures, 2015-2020 for resolution of the grievance.

(viii) In case the Online Application Form has been submitted incorrectly to the wrong jurisdiction by the complainant, the RA/SEZ will ‘Reassign’ the application to the correct RA/SEZ. Online Application(s) submitted to DGFT Headquarters will also be ‘Reassigned’ to the correct DGFT RA/SEZ by the concerned division in the HQ. For information of the Complainant, information regarding reassignment to another DGFT RA/SEZ will also be provided in the ‘Update Status’ link.

(ix) Each DGFT RA/SEZ will also regularly update position of the cases on the link ‘Update Status’ so that the Complainant and the DGFT HQ can track the progress made on the grievance filed.

3. Difficulties, if any, in implementation of these provisions may please be brought to the notice of this Directorate immediately.

4. Indian Missions abroad and Export Promotion Councils may give wide publicity to this online filing & tracking facility.

This issues with approval of the DG.
 

R.P. Goyal

Additional Director General Of Foreign Trade

File No. 01/233/HQ/18-19/ECA II