Introduction of Project Imports Module in ICES - Customs - PUBLIC NOTICE No. 05/2019

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF FINANCE, DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPAL COMMISSIONER CUSTOMS AIR PORT AIR CARGO COMPLEX AIR INDIA SATS AIRFRELGHT TERMINAL, KEMPEGOWDA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, DEVANAHALLI, BANGALORE 560 300. C. No. VIII/48/85/2019/BACC/Tech. Dated: 21-06-2019 PUBLIC NOTICE No. 05/2019 Sub: Introduction of Project Imports Module in ICES - Reg. Attention of all Customs Brokers, Importers, Members of the Trade and other stake holders is invited towards the ICES Advisory No. 13/2019 dated 29.05.2019 regarding Introduction of Project Imports Module in ICES. 2. Project Imports registration as per the Project Imports Regulations, 1986 has been happening manually till now. Bulky registers are maintained with the debit entries of all the items of import. The process of issuing release advises to other ports, debiting bond and finalizing the project have also been largely manual. Creation of a holistic Project Imports module in the System has been, therefore, felt as a necessary requirement. The same has now been developed in ICES replacing the manual and cumbersome process in vogue currently. The Project Imports module developed in ICES now is aimed at covering the following processes: (i) Registration of a Project and generation of a Project number (ii) Bond Registration for Project Imports (iii) Filing of provisional BES with project number and bond details. Item wise debits in the project/bond for every BE (iv) Finalization of the Provisional BES and re-crediting of the Bond. 2.1 Registration Project Registration functionality has been developed on the lines of license registration. The registration has to be done in the LIC role under License Registration. The same form as available at the time of registering licenses will be used for generating project number in the System. Following points may be kept in mind while registering a project: a) Scheme code to be used is PI, Notification will be null. b) All items of import have to be entered with quantity and value; No items of export. c) Default validity has been kept as 84 months. But the same is amendable. d) The limitation factor would be B - both value and quantity e) Sponsoring authority's certificate details can be entered in Receipt No and date fields. f) Iss_By will be the code of the sponsoring authority (list of values in F 7) g) Bond details are mandatory. Only the bonds registered under the new bond category of PI can be given during registration. h) Value (CIF) in foreign currency (FC) is mandatory Once the registration is complete in LIC role and then approved in APR role (under license management), a 10-digit number license number would be generated by the System with the first two digits as 99. This can be treated as the Project number, for further quoting the same in the Bills of Entry. 2.2 Bond Registration For the purposes of Project Imports, a new category of bonds with the code PI have been created. This bond is a national provisional bond, and can be used for imports at any port under a project. The bond registration process is similar to that of any other bond. Only when a PI bond is registered can a project be registered quoting the same in registration form. 2.3 Filing of import declarations Once a project (license) number is generated, the same can be used to file import declarations similar to how declarations with EP licenses are filed. The BES will have to be filed with PI as the scheme code and the serial numbers of the items of import will also have to be quoted as per the project registration along with the Project number in the license table. The bond details will reflect similarly at the time of assessment and with the corresponding debit value. The project ledger will also be maintained the same way as the license ledger in the System with both item quantity and value debits. For imports at ports other than the port of registration, online TRA can be issued in the System at the port of registration. A detailed advisory on the filing of import declarations including necessary information for the benefit of trade will follow. 2.4 Finalization of Project The finalization of all the BES under a project and recrediting of the bond can be done using the already existing options in the FAO and FDC roles. 3. To begin with, project registration and bond registration have been operationalized in ICES. It is mandatory that all the live projects currently and hereafter be compulsorily registered in the System as detailed in paras above. This exercise may be started immediately as once the changes indicated in above paras are implemented for BE filing and processing, no BE of project imports will be allowed to be filed without quoting the project number. The changes related to filing of project bills of entry will also be introduced shortly with a detailed advisory on the same. 4. Difficulties, if any, may be brought the notice of the Deputy Commissioner (Group 6), AP ACC, Bangalore. (Dr. M. SUBRAMANYAM) COMMISSIONER