- Citizens' Charter
PREFACE
A Citizens’ Charter reflects the commitment of an organisation towards standards, quality, transparency and accountability of services delivered and act as an effective grievance redressal mechanism. The prime objective of the Citizens’ Charter is to improve the quality of customer service. The Citizens’ Charter for the Foreign Exchange Department of the Reserve Bank of India elucidates the main functions of the Department and remedies available to the citizens with a view to improving the quality of customer service in the area of foreign exchange. The Charter does not create new legal rights but reinforces the existing rights.
The objective of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, (FEMA) is to “facilitate external trade and payments” and “promote orderly development and maintenance of foreign exchange market in India”. As part of the obligations assumed under Article VIII of the charter of its membership of International Monetary Fund, India accepted the move towards full current account convertibility in August 1994. Therefore all quantitative and sectoral restrictions, with a few exceptions, were gradually removed for all current account transactions and extensive powers have been delegated to the Authorized Dealers to deal with all categories of current account transactions. Most of the current account transactions do not require the Reserve Bank’s prior approval. Approval of the Reserve Bank is required for those transactions listed in Schedule–III to the Foreign Exchange Management (Current Account Transactions) Rules, 2000, where the remittance to be made is beyond the stipulated limit.
As India is not fully convertible on the capital account, a calibrated approach towards the same is being followed. In keeping with the spirit of liberalisation, which has become the hallmark of economic policy in general, and foreign exchange regulations in particular, the Reserve Bank has been progressively relaxing and simplifying the procedures for capital account transactions. Accordingly, certain capital account transactions involving foreign direct investment, external commercial borrowings and the overseas direct investment have been permitted to be undertaken under automatic route/general permission. In respect of transactions which are not covered under general permission, the entities are required to approach the Reserve Bank through their authorized dealers for necessary approvals. Capital inflows to India are subject to a hierarchy of preferences- equity over debt and in equity -direct investment is preferred over portfolio flows, and in debt -rupee denominated debt preferred over foreign currency debt and medium and long-term debt preferred over short-term debt. Outbound capital flows are enabled to make the Indian entities competitive in global arena for better access to global networks and markets, transfer of technology and skills and to share research and development efforts and outcomes. The overall approach has been to traverse towards capital account convertibility along a gradual path - the path itself being recalibrated on a dynamic basis in response to domestic and global developments. Therefore administrative measures are in place to influence the composition of capital flows.
Time frame for handling both current and capital account transactions are indicated in the Citizens' Charter.
The Department's endeavour is to render efficient customer service through its Central Office at Mumbai as well as 17 Regional Offices and two Cells, one each at Nagpur and Srinagar. The Citizens’ Charter of the Foreign Exchange Department gives you information about your rights relating to foreign exchange transactions as residents of this country through the following six sections :
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