The commerce ministry will soon have a directorate general of trade remedies (DGTR), who will function as the apex national authority for administering all trade remedial measures including anti-dumping, countervailing duties and safeguard measures.
The DGTR will bring the directorate general of anti-dumping and allied duties (DGAD), directorate general of safeguards (DGS) into its fold by merging them into one single national entity.
It will also provide trade defence support to domestic industry and exporters in dealing with increasing instances of trade remedy investigations instituted against them by other countries.
In the last three years, India initiated more than 130 anti-dumping / countervailing duty / safeguard cases to deal with the rising incidences of unfair trade practices and to provide a level playing field to domestic industry.
DGTR has been approved with a sanctioned strength of 112 posts drawn from directorate general of anti-dumping and allied duties of department of commerce and directorate general of safeguards of CBEC.
DGTR will be a multi service organisation drawing upon the skill-set of various officers from the field of international trade, customs, revenue, finance, economics, costing and law.
The creation of DGTR will also result in savings of 49 posts to the government on account of merging DGAD and DGS.
Commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu has granted his approval for the creation of DGTR, which pending since 1997.