Customs clearances to get paperless from 2017

Mumbai: Imports will become easier
from the next year as the CBEC is planning to go paperless and move towards a
completely integrated Customs system for facilitating documentation and
fast-tracking clearances of consignments.

The Central Board of Excise and
Customs (CBEC) is planning to rope in more government agencies under its SWIFT
mechanism, which replaces nine separate documents with one common electronic
declaration.

“In another six months, we are
planning to go completely electronic for Customs clearance by doing away with
requirement of any physical documents. We are planning to create a web
repository”, Additional Director General (Customs) S K Vimalanathan said.

The CBEC had, on April 1, launched a
single-point interface SWIFT for clearance of imports to facilitate trade by
reducing the dwell time. About 10 lakh documents have been processed till June
1,2016.

“Importers still need to show physical
copies of various documents like analytical certificates. We are working on
enabling importers to scan and upload those documents in a PDF format and this
will be made available to Customs officer as a link”, Vimalanathan said.

The CBEC will float a ‘Request For
Proposal’ within three months inviting IT companies to integrate the customs
system which currently uses three softwares for faster clearance of goods. With
the Integrated Customs System, the document processing time will come down to
less than 10 seconds from more than 10 minutes now, Vimalanathan said.

The CBEC has substantially brought
down the documentation requirements and now importer are required to file only
three documents -- Declaration of Goods, Invoice and packing list -- at the
time of Bill of Entry.

Earlier, importers had to file 18 such
documents. The SWIFT clearance mechanism brings in six government agencies --
FSSAI, plant quarantine, animal quarantine, drug controller, wild life
controller bureau and textiles committee --
on a single platform.

This has eliminated need for importers
to interact separately with these agencies. We are working on non-intrusive
ways for clearance of goods. We are talking to more agencies to come under the
SWIFT platform for ensuring faster clearance of goods, Chief Commissioner
(Customs) Rajeev Tandon said.

In order to ensure efficient
facilitation through Risk Management System (RMS), Tandon said the Customs departments
keep tweaking them as per global scenario.

RMS is a process through
which Customs officials can single out suspicious cargo based on various risk
parameters like items, country of origin, importer’s track record. This reduces
time as customs officials do not need to carry out manual checks on each cargo.

PTI