EDI facilities at Customs locations should cheer exporters

Exporters and importers have good news. At present, 39 Customs stations at 19 locations are EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)-enabled. Seventy-five more Customs stations are set to go fully on-line very soon. As a preparatory move, a central directory of all Customs House Agents (CHA) and Carrier Agencies (shipping lines, mainline agents, sub-line agents, freight forwarders, consol agents, airlines and other carriers) is being created at the centralised version of the Indian Customs EDI System (ICES).

ICES has an earlier localised version, 1.0, and a newer centralised version, 1.5. At several of the 19 existing locations, ICES version 1.5 has already been implemented. In some of the new Customs stations that are set to go fully online, the new version has been implemented in a limited way, for example, filing only free shipping bills. Several CHA and carrier agencies had already registered under the older localised version, 1.0, but the details in some cases are not consistent.

So, now all the CHA and carrier agencies have been asked to reconfirm the particulars already submitted or register afresh by 16th of this month. If they do not do so, they would not be able to transact business after implementation of the corrected directories in ICES 1.5. However, they will continue to be able to work in the earlier version ICES 1.0 till such time as the record is closed after examination of relevant documents.

During verification, if discrepancies with respect to Income Tax Permanent Account Number, or name of the agency are observed, the incorrect records will not be deleted but these entries will be closed in the system by the designated officers. Modification of address or contact details, however, can be carried out.

The provision to register or amend certain details has been made available in respect of policy section locations which were earlier working on ICES 1.0, but have since migrated to ICES 1.5. For this purpose, arrangements have been made at the sites to connect to the appropriate server in the Directorate of Systems, CR Building, New Delhi, where the updation is being handled.

Meanwhile, certain glitches have been sorted out. All the Advance Authorisations/EPCG (Export Promotion Capital Goods) licences issued on or after March 1, 2009, and any amendment concerning these are being transmitted online from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) to Customs. The new advance authorisations will not have individual value restrictions and the authorisations issued earlier can be got corrected.

Some problems, however, persist. The Export Obligation Discharge Certificate (EODC) under advance authorisation is not being transmitted online. So, even though export obligation is fulfilled and EODC has been received by the licence holder, bond for duty-free import will have to be furnished as there is no provision of entering the details of EODC manually. Where the system does not validate or accept the details of licences issued by DGFT, the licence holders have to approach the licensing authority for resolution of the problem.

Despite these problems, the promise of EDI-enabled online assessments at most of the Customs stations should cheer the exporters. Hopefully, all the stake holders, importers, exporters, Customs, DGFT, banks, carriers, CHA, testing laboratories, inspection agencies etc., will all be able to facilitate EDI and reduce transaction costs.

Email: tncr@sify.com