Manual filing of Bills of Entry and Shipping Bills in-Regarding. - Customs - TF 10/2011

OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS CUSTOMS HOUSE: COCHIN-682009 TRADE FACILITY NO. 10/2011 Sub: Manual filing of Bills of Entry and Shipping Bills in-Regarding. Attention is invited to the amendment to Section 46 and Section 50 in the Customs Act, 1962 by the Budget of 2011. In terms of the Amendment all the Bills of Entry and Shipping Bills are to be filed electronically only. Provided that the Commissioner of Customs may, in cases where it is not feasible to make entry by presenting electronically, allow an entry to be presented in any other manner. In this connection CBEC has instructed that henceforth manual processing and clearance of import/export goods shall be allowed only in exceptional and genuine cases when it is not feasible to process the import/export documents through EDI. In accordance with Sections 46 and 50 of the Customs Act, 1962 , this authority shall be exercised only by the Commissioner of Customs. It is reiterated that the facility of manual processing of import/exports documents shall be provided as an exception to the rule of EDI processing and whenever granted it shall be withdrawn no sooner EDI processing is feasible. The Central Board of Excise Customs (CBEC) has also decided that data for manual documents should be compulsorily entered and transmitted at all locations within the stipulated time period. In terms of the above instruction it is clarified that if any Bill of Entry or Shipping Bill is required to be filed manually because of any technical problem arising on account of introduction of ICES 1.5 version, in that case the following procedure will be followed: (1). The request for filing manual Shipping Bill or Bill of Entry shall be filed with Systems Manager in the Custom House. (2). The System Manager, based on the recommendation of the EDI section will examine whether the problem is due to any technical snag in the 1.5 Version and whether the same can be rectified within a reasonable time period. After confirming that the reasons cited for manual filing are genuine and manual filing of the document is the only alternative, the System Manager may endorse the same in the file. (3). Based upon the said recommendations, the file will be submitted to the Commissioner of Customs through the ADC/JC in charge who will give the final permission for filing manual document after examining the implication regarding licencing provision, debiting of licence, forwarding the Shipping Bill to DGFT etc. (4) Based on the said permission they shall file the manual Bill of Entry and Shipping Bill in the Import Bond department. The Import Bond department shall arrange a running serial numbers for Bills of Entry as well as Shipping Bills as prescribed for the manual Shipping Bills. The Import Bond department shall forward copies of the Shipping Bills and Bills of Entry so registered to the Statistics department for entry of the data in the EDI system. A proper record shall also be kept for all such documents in order to ensure that all the documents are fed into the EDI system. All existing procedure prescribed for manual Bill of Entry and Shipping Bill shall continue to apply. Sd/ - (VIJAY KALSI) COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS F.No. C1/08/2011-TU. Cus. Date: 11.05.2011