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The Indian government has enhanced ‘ease of dong business’ for importers and exporters by eliminating the need for physical copies for customs clearance to a large extent. The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) will implement it from December 1 to help importers and exporters move towards electronic messaging and a paper–free environment.
In a circular, CBEC announced that importers and exporters, belonging to various fields including textiles, will henceforth not be required to submit printouts for a number of documents. These include GAR 7 forms/TR 6 Challans, Trans-shipment Permit (TP), shipping bill (exchange control copy and export promotion copy) and bill of entry (exchange control copy) to banks, Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and customs ports among others.
As 95 per cent of the importers are now paying duty through e-payment and these documents can be viewed on the IceGate e-payment gateway, there is no need to print GAR 7 Forms/TR6 Challans. As for TP information, it is sent electronically to the carrier, the transporter undertaking the transshipment, the custodian of the gateway port and the Indian Customs EDI System (ICES) at the destination inland container depot (ICD) or port. Thus, the requirement for submission of manual printouts of TP copy has been done away with.
ICES generates documents such as the shipping bill and the bill of entry electronically. CBEC provides copies of the digitally signed shipping bill to DGFT and the data of shipping bill is also integrated with the Export Data Processing and Monitoring System (EDPMS) of RBI. Therefore, printing of the exchange control copy and export promotion copy of the shipping bill for manual submission by the exporter is not required.
Similarly, with the operationalisation of the Import Data Processing and Monitoring System (IDPMS), banks are not required to obtain a physical copy of bill of entry from the importer as an evidence of import because data can be transferred in a secured manner from the system of customs department to IDPMS. Therefore, it has been decided to discontinue the printing of exchange control copy of bill of entry.
All customs houses at ports, air cargo complex, ICDs and CFCs have been asked to issue public notice regarding the new decision. (KD)
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