No more manual work at Port Blair sea customs

The Port Blair sea customs in Andaman and Nicobar Islands Monday started its operations electronically for import and export processes, officials said.

With this, work at all the three ports under the Kolkata customs commissioner has been computerised, they said.

The jurisdictions of commissioner of customs, Kolkata (port) covers the ports of Kolkata, Haldia, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the area under the jurisdiction of Kolkata, Howrah and south suburban corporations.

It also covers the Hoogly river downstream of the northern limit of the Kolkata port and all land within 10 kilometers of high water mark at spring tide on either side of the river.

"It is brought to the notice of all exporters, importers, custom brokers, custodians, banks, trade and all concerned that the computerisation processing of shipping bills and bills of entries under the Indian customs EDI (electronic data interchange) system, shall become operational from July 8, 2019," a notice issued by the office of the commissioner of customs (port) said.

People now don't need to file bills of entry and other documents manually and it will be done electronically.

"The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has been emphasising upon digitisation of all processes. The inclusion of Port Blair sea port is a very important milestone as it is a very remote location," said S R Baruah, Chief Commissioner of Customs, Kolkata.

He said soon other locations under the Kolkata jurisdiction will be brought under the EDI platform.

A total of 24 bills of entry for goods was filed during 2018-19 worth over Rs 100 crore at Port Blair. LPG and river sand are main imported gods at this port, the officials said.