The Department of Commerce has extended the operational timelines under Component II of RELIEF—Resilience and Logistics Intervention for Export Facilitation—until 31 March 2027, in response to continued geopolitical disruptions in West Asia and their impact on maritime logistics across the Gulf and adjoining regions . The extension was notified through DGFT Notification No. 37/2026-27 dated 30 September 2026, and formally announced by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on 26 October 2026 . The measure reflects the government's assessment that the conditions that necessitated the scheme's creation in March 2026 have not sufficiently eased to allow it to lapse.
RELIEF was launched on 19 March 2026 as a time-bound intervention under the Export Promotion Mission, designed to support Indian exporters facing extraordinary freight cost escalation, higher insurance premiums, and war-related export risks arising from disruptions in the Gulf and the wider West Asian maritime corridor . The scheme operates through the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India (ECGC) and is structured in three components targeting different segments of the exporter base.
Component II, the component now extended, encourages exporters to obtain ECGC cover for upcoming shipments to specified regions by providing 95% risk coverage . This represents a significant enhancement over ECGC's standard cover levels of 80% to 90% . The benefit is available for Standalone Policies and Whole Turnover Policies obtained on or after 16 March 2026, and the premium payable by eligible exporters is protected against increases beyond pre-disruption levels during the eligible period . The covered cargo categories include Full Container Load, Less than Container Load, and refrigerated containers, explicitly excluding energy shipments .
The scale of the risk that RELIEF is designed to address is substantial. War-risk premiums for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz have risen to between 7.5% and 10% of hull value, up from a prior range of 1% to 3%, according to S&P Global data . Insurance on a single 270,000-metric-tonne tanker has reached approximately US$21 million . While these figures relate primarily to energy shipping, the broader insurance environment for Gulf and West Asian routes has tightened across cargo categories, affecting exporters of manufactured goods, agricultural products, and other containerized cargo.
The geographic scope of RELIEF covers shipments destined for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Israel, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen, for delivery or transshipment . This encompasses the GCC states that constitute India's largest trading partner bloc in West Asia, with bilateral trade exceeding $178 billion in FY25 . The inclusion of Israel and Iran alongside the GCC states reflects the broad definition of the disrupted corridor, which extends from the Strait of Hormuz through the Red Sea and into the eastern Mediterranean.
Component III of RELIEF targets a different category of exporter. It provides MSME exporters who held no ECGC insurance during the disruption period with reimbursement of up to 50% of eligible additional freight and insurance costs, capped at ₹50 lakh per exporter . Of the scheme's total ₹497 crore allocation, ₹282 crore is ring-fenced for Component III, making it the largest single portion . This allocation structure signals that the government has prioritised support for smaller exporters who lacked the commercial insurance relationships that larger firms maintain.
The operational mechanics require exporters seeking coverage to submit claims and supporting documents through the ECGC customer portal, with guidance available through video tutorials on ECGC's official YouTube channel . ECGC maintains a real-time dashboard to track claims and fund utilisation, providing the government with visibility into how the scheme is being used and where gaps may exist . The extension to March 2027 provides a longer planning horizon for exporters and their logistics partners, allowing them to factor the enhanced coverage into their cost calculations for shipments through the first quarter of the next financial year.
For the shipping and logistics sector, the RELIEF extension is a signal that the government expects the Gulf disruption to persist well into 2027. The scheme's design—particularly its focus on insurance rather than direct freight subsidies—indicates that the policy response is calibrated to manage risk rather than to distort market pricing. Exporters who have been absorbing higher insurance costs or declining marginal shipments due to risk exposure now have a longer window to secure coverage at protected premium levels. Whether that translates into sustained export volumes to Gulf markets will depend on whether the underlying security conditions improve, but the extension ensures that the financial mechanism to support trade flows remains in place.