At present, approval for ECB proposals under $ 3 million scheme (enhanced to $ 5 million latter) is given by the RBI. All other ECB proposals will be processed by department of economic affairs.

The changed guidelines aimed at further simplification and rationalisation, would come to effect from January 1. Accordingly applications for approval upto 10 million dollars made after January 1, 1999 will be considered by the exchange control department of RBI, Mumbai. However applications received prior to January 1 in the ECB division would continue to be processed by the ministry of finance.

The government has also reviewed its earlier decision to stop considering fresh requests for ECB prepayment, and now decided to permit ECB prepayment if they are met out of inflow of foreign equity.