Further facilitating trade and streamlining procedure through various Initiatives for Contactless Customs - Customs - PUBLIC NOTICE No. 51/2020

OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPAL COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS AIR CARGO COMPLEX (IMPORT) NEW CUSTOMS IIOUSE. NEAR IGI M 1 ORT. NEW DELHI- 10037 C. No. VIII(12)Import/Tech./PN/06/2020/Pt.1 Dated: 07.07.2020 PUBLIC NOTICE No. 51/2020 Subject: Further facilitating trade and streamlining procedure through various Initiatives for Contactless Customs - reg. Attention of the importers, Customs Brokers, members of the trade and all other stake holders is invited to Board s Circular No. 32/2020- Customs dated 06.07.2020 and ICES Advisory No. 23/2020 on the above captioned subject. 2. Customs has recently introduced a number of initiatives that leverage technology in order to enhance efficiency in the Customs clearance process thereby leading to speedy clearances, transparency in decision making, ease of doing business and very importantly, reduce physical contact in the prevailing pandemic situation. These initiatives include, amongst others, automated clearances of Bills of Entry, digitisation of Customs documents, paperless clearance and Faceless Assessment. With the objective of further facilitating trade and streamlining procedure, particularly to overcome the scourge of COVID-19, the below mentioned initiatives are being implemented. a) Automated debit of bond after Assessment: Presently, importers or their representatives are required to physically visit Customs House for physical debit of Bonds after the Bill of Entry is returned (to the importer) for the payment of duty. On review, it has been decided to do away with this requirement. Instead, ICES would automatically debit the Bond and reflect the same in the first copy of the Bill of Entry, provided the details of the Bond are provided during submission of the Bill of Entry. Only in cases where either a Bond is not given during filing Of the Bill of Entry or the balance available in the Bond is not sufficient, necessary intervention by Customs Officer will be required for debiting. To avoid this, all concerned are advised to furnish bond details along with the Bill of Entry and to use Continuity bonds wherever possible so as to avoid the necessity to physically visit Customs House for registration or debiting of Bonds. b) Simolified Registration of Importers in ICEGATE: Although simplified Registration module for importers based on verification provided in associated GSTIN has been provided without the requirement of digital signature, since many importers have not availed the same, various functionalities available in the ICEGATE portal cannot be accessed by them. These functionalities are useful to the importers and would help them in their management of imports. Some of these functionalities are Management of Bank Accounts, Ledger View, IGST Refund status, Query Reply etc. Therefore, importers are advised to register on ICEGATE and conduct their Customs clearances through electronic interface. The simplified registration on ICEGATE can be done easily in few moments by following the steps given in the link at https://www.ice ate. ov.in/Download/Adviso for Sim Iified %20Re istration at ICEGATE VI. c) Streamlining of workflow in case of First Check Bill of Entry: i) Currently, a first check Bill of Entry has to be activated by the appraising officer after it comes back from the Import Shed with the first check examination report. This adds one additional step and at times, creates delay in assessment of such consignments. Sometimes, the importer has to visit the assessing officer for activation of the Bill of Entry. This becomes all the more challenging in the case of faceless assessment where the Bill of Entry gets assessed at some other port. Now, the need for activating has been done away with and the Bill of Entry will automatically come to the assessing officer s queue after being marked by the Import Shed officers with completed first check examination report. ii) Further, there was no facility earlier with the appraising officer to seek additional inputs from the examination officers in case the first check report is incomplete or not sufficient to assess Bill of Entry. Now, in such cases, the AC/ DC of assessment group can again mark the Bill of Entry back to the examiner by entering N when asked to confirm whether assessment is complete. Only when Y is entered by the ACI DC, the assessment will be considered as complete by the System. iii) First check Bill of Entry when comes to SUP queue, it sometimes comes with CFS code as FAC which may create issue in marking it to INS. To resolve this issue, now first check Bill of Entry would be routed to SUP with CFS code indicated as NOCFS and the Superintendent/AO can exercise the already existing option in SUP role to enter the CFS code and send it to INS. 3. All trade associations/members of Customs Brokers Association are requested to take note and publicize the contents of this Public Notice among their members/constituents. 4. For the departmental officers, this may be treated as Standing Order. 5. Difficulties, if any, may be brought to the notice Of Additional Commissioner of Customs (Technical), ACC Import, New Customs House, New Delhi. This issues with the approval of the Principal Commissioner of Customs, ACC (Import). Additional Commissioner (Technical) ACC (Import)