Turant Customs- Next generation reform for Ease of Doing Business - Customs - PUBLIC NOTICE No. 48/2019

MINISTRY OF FINANCE, DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE, CENTRAL BOARD OF INDIRECT TAX AND CUSTOMS, OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPAL COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS, CUSTOMS HOUSE, MUNDRA PORT SEZ, KUTCH, GUJARAT-370421 F. No. VIII/48-45/AG-CHM/PN-48/Turant/Custom/18-19 Dated 15/03/2019 PUBLIC NOTICE No. 48/2019 Subject: Turant Customs- Next generation reform for Ease of Doing Business- m/reg. Attention of all Importers, Exporters, Customs Brokers, Members of Trade and all person concerned is invited to the CBIC Circular No. 09/2019-Customs dated 28.02.2019. 2. In this regard, attention is drawn to the Bill of Entry (Electronic Integrated Declaration and Paperless Processing) Regulations, 2018 which require the importers or their authorised persons to enter the electronic integrated declaration (Bill of Entry) and the supporting documents in the Customs Automated System by affixing a digital signature. Accordingly, the supporting documents are presently uploaded using e-Sanchit from the ICEGATE web portal (refer Circular No. 40/2017 -Customs dated 13.10.2017 and Instruction No, 02/2018 Customs dated 07.02.2018). Now, in furtherance of these regulations, the importers or their authorised persons would be able to themselves register the goods online on the ICEGATE web portal after the goods have arrived (and not after payment of duty, as at present). This self-registration would further reduce the time of clearance besides freeing the Customs officers for handling other important Items of work. 3. A further trade facilitation initiative being introduced in the Customs clearance process is that Of Customs Compliance Verification (CCV) which would operate after an importer registers the imported goods even while duty has not been paid or its payment is in process. Once the goods are registered, the proper officer would do all necessary verifications as per Sections 17/18 and Section 47(1) of the Customs Act, 1962. On satisfaction that the goods are ready for clearance, but for the payment of duties, the proper officer would confirm the completion of the CCV for the particular Bill of Entry in the System. Thereafter, on payment of duty by the importer, the Customs Automated System would electronically give clearance to -the Bill of Entry, as provided for in the 1st proviso to Section 47 (1) of the Customs Act, 1962. 4. It is to be noted that the above new features in ICES 41.5 of granting clearance post CCV will continue to be subject to the interdictions from the RMS, alerts from agencies such as Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), and other local -contingencies which are already part of the inbuilt checks in ICES. Considering that the OOC would normally be given by the System and not by an officer, the interdicted Bills of Entry will be removed from the queue for electronic clearance by System mentioned in para 3 above. 5. Further, significant changes have been made in the ICES I .5 for clearance of imported goods after finalization of assessment and payment of duty under Section 47(1) of the Customs Act, 1962. The proper officer will now have access to a fully automated queue of Bills of Entry ready for the grant of clearance in the ICES 1.5 which obviates the present necessity of the importer/authorised person having Co present the Bill of Entry number and date to this officer for seeking clearance. Based upon the Bills of Entry which are ready for clearance in this automated queue the proper officer would be able to directly and immediately grant clearance on the System. Besides greatly reducing the dwell time of the goods that are pending only for the grant of such clearance, this will reduce the interface of the trade with the department personnel to the advantage of both. 6. A new automated queuing feature is being operationalized from 18.03.2019 which will not require the importer/ authorised person to physically present the bill of entry details to the customs officer. The Bills of Entry pending for clearance will automatically come before the OOC officer (having SUP role) following FIFO rule, much like the queuing of Bills of Entry for assessment. 6.1 As a pre-requisite, it has been decided to implement a practice of allocation of BES to different groups of CFSs [Custodians to OOC officers, similar to group allocation based on Customs Tariff followed for appraising officers. The scheme is as follows: (i) For non-facilitated Bills of Entry- The SMS/ ASMs will allocate the corresponding custodian group codes to the designated OOC officers having SUP roles from the newly created CFS User Mapping option in the ADN role. Multiple groups can be assigned to an officer depending upon the work allocation. Similarly, one group can also be allotted to multiple officers. Once the mapping is complete, the facility to automatically queue the Bills of Entry before the designated officer(s) for OOC will be implemented. (ii) For fully facilitated Bills of Entry - A new group of Facilitated CFS / Terminal Operator has been created which should be allocated to designated officers for giving OOC to fully facilitated Bills of Entry. The SMS/ ASMs can allocate this Facilitated group also from the same list of group codes provided under the CFS User Mapping option (ADN role). Once the automatic queuing is implemented, all the RMS facilitated Bills of Entry will be routed only to this facilitated group for OOC. (Ref: Public Notice No. 50/2017-18 dated 21.03.2018) 7. The difficulties faced, if any, in this regard may be brought to the notice of the undersigned. (Sanjay Kumar Agarwal) Principal Commissioner