The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has refunded a total of more than Rs. 10,700 crores as refund under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and Customs. The refund amounts for the period from 8th April 2020 to 23rd April 2020. The CBIC has done a marvellous job in refunding the claims in merely 16 days.
Under the ‘Special Refund and Drawback Disposal Drive’, the officials of CBIC has cleared more than 1.08 lakh GST refund claims 
On 8th April 2020, the Ministry of Finance had declared that to provide some relief in this time of crisis because of the outbreak of COVID-19, the department is going to process all the pending claims under GST and customs that will be beneficial for more than 1 lakh businessmen and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) 
The department had ordered its officials to skip the procedure of physical submission of documents by the claiming parties and said that all the necessary communication should be held through emails only. The government has taken the step to provide the benefit of instant refunds to the assessees to help the individuals in this time of crisis. The government has waived off the time limit to 15 days to issue acknowledgement letters and to provide the refunds within 60 days of the date marked on the acknowledgement letter. instead, the department will be processing the refund payments as soon as the claim is made by the assessee.
