The government is likely to extend the tax relief for exporters under the Duty Entitlement Passbook ,DEPB, scheme for another three months, from its 30th of June deadline.However,it has been made clear that this is a transitional arrangement and the exporters should be prepared to switchover to a duty drawback scheme when the DEPB extension ends. A commerce ministry official said in New Delhi, the finance ministry has given a three-month extension to the popular export incentive scheme that extends tax breaks to exporters.The decision to extend DEPB was taken at a meeting early this week between finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma.DEPB scheme neutralises import duty on inputs that go into the imports and also entitles exporters to duty-free scrips, or entitlements, which they can use to pay import duties.The scheme cost the exchequer 8,520 crore rupees in 2010-11 and more than 60 per cent of the benefits have gone to large engineering and chemical exporters.