Handbook of Procedures

What it does

The Handbook of Procedures sets out how the Foreign Trade Policy is carried out in practice. The Policy states what may be exported or imported and on what terms, and the Handbook states the steps: what application to make, to whom, with which documents, and in what form. It is issued by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade, which publishes it in chapters and revises it from time to time. The edition cited on this site for the export control chapter is the one of July 2026.

Chapter 10 deals with SCOMET, the list of Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies, which is India's export control list for dual use items. Paragraph 10.02 permits the export of SCOMET items against an authorisation unless the export is prohibited or specifically exempted. The Handbook requires an online application on the DGFT portal, with an end user certificate in the prescribed form, and the original goes to the SCOMET Cell in hard copy.

Who it binds

Exporters, importers and other persons who deal in goods and services under the Foreign Trade Policy, and the licensing authorities who act on their applications. For SCOMET it binds a manufacturer that exports a listed item, a supplier that sends one for repair, a company that re-exports an imported item, and one that transfers listed technology. It reaches the person who ships and the person who arranges the shipment.

What has changed, and when

The Handbook is revised by public notice and by new editions of its chapters, and the page cannot treat it as a single dated text. The Handbook that accompanies the Foreign Trade Policy 2023 is the starting point, and the chapter cited here is the edition of July 2026. A procedure should be taken from the edition current at the date of the application.

A related change to the list the Handbook works with is recorded on this site. The DGFT revised the SCOMET list on 23 September 2025, to take effect 30 days after issue, and filled Category 7, until then reserved, with emerging technology items that include advanced chip manufacturing tools for lithography, low temperature epitaxy, deposition and dry etching. Category 8 keeps the general semiconductor equipment entry.

What turns on it in practice

The site's note on India's export control list and chip manufacturing tools deals with the effect. A fab or tool supplier that exports, sends for repair, re-exports or transfers technology for those items needs an authorisation from the DGFT first, files an end user certificate, and keeps records for at least five years. Some of the Handbook's rules reach beyond a plain sale abroad. An imported SCOMET item cannot be exported, even from a customs bonded warehouse, without authorisation. A supply from the domestic tariff area to a special economic zone or an export oriented unit needs none, but is reported to the Development Commissioner within one week.

The Handbook works with the Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act, 2005, which applies to exports, transfers, re-transfers, transit, trans-shipment and brokering, and a catch-all paragraph requires an authorisation for an unlisted item that the exporter has been told, or has reason to believe, risks diversion to weapons of mass destruction, missiles or military use.

For a manufacturer or a distributor, the practical tasks are classification of the item against the list before the first quotation, an end user certificate in the prescribed form for each export, and a record system that can be produced on request. The authorisation comes before the shipment, and a repair shipment or a re-export needs one in the same way as a sale.