 Minister
for Finance Arun Jaitley at the Pre-Budget consultative committee meeting,
in New Delhi on January 6, 2015.
India’s air cargo
stakeholders received a big year-end gift from the Central Board of Excise
and Customs (the board is part of the Government’s Ministry of Finance
and responsible for collection of Customs duties).
On the last day of 2014, the Board issued
a circular regarding the extension of 24/7 Customs clearance facility
to more airports for all export goods and to seaports for specified import
and export goods.
This was the promise made by Indian Finance
Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget 2014-15 speech in the beginning of
July 2014.
He had said that exports could not be increased
unless all stakeholders played an active role in export promotion by providing
good infrastructure and full facilitation.
“It will be our endeavor to engage
with the states to take India's exports to a higher growth trajectory.
It is proposed to establish an Export promotion Mission to bring all stakeholders
under one umbrella,” he had said.
To reduce transaction costs, improve business
competitiveness and hasten the clearance of import and export cargo, measures
were being initiated to extend the existing 24/7 customs clearance facility
to more airports for all exports.
The 24/7 Customs clearance for specified
imports and exports is now available at 17 air cargo complexes: Ahmedabad,
Amritsar, Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Cochin, Calicut, Delhi, Goa,
Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Nashik, Thiruvananthapuram
and Vishakapatnam. Along with the airports, 18 seaports too have now received
the facility.
Incidentally, the move to keep Customs open
24/7 was started way back in September 2012 at four international air
cargo complexes: Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai.
Later, in June 2013, the order was extended
to cover 13 more air cargo complexes.
The circular pointed out that the Board
had undertaken detailed inter-ministerial consultations to ensure participation
of all stakeholders to make the 24/7 Customs clearance facility available.
“The objective is to ensure that besides
the Customs, the officers of all agencies concerned with the import/export
process including custodians, Customs Brokers, etc. proactively participate
in making this facility a success.
“As a result, all agencies are now
committed to work hand in hand with the Customs to make available this
facility . . . It is expected that an effective 24/7
Customs clearance facility will greatly facilitate trade and reduce transaction
cost.”
Tirthankar Ghosh |
