OFFICE OF THE CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS,
MUMBAI ZONE - I, NEW CUSTOM HOUSE,
BALLARD ESTATE, MUMBAI 400 001.

MINUTES OF THE OPEN HOUSE MEETING OF THE CHIEF COMMISSIONERS OF CUSTOMS, MUMBAI ZONE-I, II & III HELD WITH THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE TRADE AND INDUSTRY ASSOCIATIONS ON 26th JULY, 2006 AT 3.30 P.M. IN
THE CONFERENCE HALL OF THE MUMBAI CUSTOM HOUSE.

The Open House Meeting for the month of July, 2006 was held under the Chairmanship of Shri K. M. Tiwari, Chief Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai Zone I, Shri P. C. Jha, Chief Commissioner of Customs. Mumbai Zone-II and Shri Sumit Dutt Majumder, Chief Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai Zone-III on 26.07.2006, at 3.30 P.M. in the Conference Hall, New Custom House, Ballard Estate, Mumbai - 400 001. Shri Darshan Singh, Jt. Director, Jt. D.G.F.T., Mumbai and Shri Sunil Jain, Jt. Commissioner of Customs, EDI were also present during the meeting.

2. The following representatives of the BCHAA, Trade and Industry attended the meeting:

i) BCHAA (Bombay Custom House Agent’s Association).
Shri Naval Mehta.

ii) MANSA (Mumbai and Nhava-Sheva Ship Agents Association)
Capt. S. S. Kapadia.

iii) AIIEA (All India Importers & Exporters Association)
Shri Mohan Nihalani.

iv) Express Industry Council of India
Shri Farrokh M. Morena

v) FIEO
Smt Shyamali Banerjee.

vi) Association of Importers & Exporters of Man-made Textiles
Shri Gulam Mohd. Shaikh

vii) Indian Merchant Chamber
Shri Mark Fernandes.
Shri Virendra Parekh.

viii)Individuals / Member of the Trade

Shri Nishikant R. Prabhudesai. -- Ratiopham India Pvt. Ltd.
Shri Rajiv Gupta. -- Individual
Shri Pratap S. Mungi. -- Mungi Brothers
Shri Gajanan N. Daware. -- DHL Express (I) Ltd
Shri Diwakar J. Shetty. -- UPS Jet Air Express (I) Ltd.
Shri Karimbhai C. Boda -- Shiv Om Shipping Agency
Shri Rajendra L. Gokhale. -- Forbes Marshal P. Ltd
Shri V. Shreedhar. -- Fedex
Shri R. Krishnan. -- Honey well Ltd.
Shri Venugopal Menon. -- Evergreen Tech. Pvt Ltd
Shri Harish Desai. -- Hindustan Platinum Pvt Ltd
Shri S. Bhaskar. -- Skoda Auto India
Shri B. S. Khatib. -- Godrej and Boyce Ltd
Shri Mahesh Mahalingam. – Sterlite Optical Technologies
Shri Nilesh Bubna. -- Cadbury India Ltd.
Shri Vishnu Tayal. -- Ratiopham India Pvt. Ltd.

ix) CII
Shri C. M. Tungare.

3. At the outset the Chief Commissioners welcomed all the members. He also recalled the cloud burst tragedy, which took place on 26th July 2005 exactly a year before and also the Mumbai Local Train Bomb Blast on 11.7.2006 and expressed grief and condolence over the loss of lives on that fateful day. All the members present during the meeting paid homage by observing silence for one minute. Thereafter the Chief Commissioner expressed his gratitude for the prompt action of the Ministry in providing exgratia financial grant to all officers who suffered in the unfortunate train blasts on 11.07.2006 and loss / damage of property of officers in the Heavy Floods on 26.07.05 in Mumbai.

4. Thereafter, the participants were requested to introduce themselves to the house. Many representatives stated that they were attending the meeting for the first time and were happy to be attending the same.

5. Regarding Point No. 6 of the previous meeting, Chief Commissioner, Zone-I informed the house, that Test Reports are transmitted to the Groups and reports on the transmission are loaded on the Customs website. He asked the members of the house to make use of the facilitation. A facilitation notice No. 5/2006 dated 26.07.2006 has been issued on this matter and was circulated among the members present in the meeting. The members appreciated on the initiative taken by department in this regard.

6. The Chief Commissioner of Customs, Zone I, then called for discussion on any other point of the previous minutes and queried whether the Minutes of previous meeting are taken to have been approved. The house approved the Minutes accordingly.The House commended the efforts of this office in uploading the Minutes of the meeting on the website, expeditiously.

7. Thereafter, the Agenda Points sponsored for the instant meting were taken up for discussion.

8. Regarding the point “Delay in refund of Revenue Deposits” raised by MANSA, Chief Commissioner Zone-I informed that a Special Drive would be launched to clear the pendencies. Commissioner of Customs (Gen.) would be asked to expedite the matter of “No objection Certificates” from MCD to Import Commissionerate so that this refund cases of Revenue Deposits could be decided expeditiously.
( Action : CC(G) / CC (IMP)

Regarding the Revenue Deposits, Chief Commissioner of Customs, Zone-I informed the house that recommendations have been made by the Chief Commissioners in the tariff conference of Chief Commissioner’s held in June 2006 and a decision of the Ministry is awaited.
9. Regarding the point “Minimum period of filing IGM to be disposed off”, sponsored by MANSA, the Chief Commissioner, Zone-I, clarified that in view of the Board’s Circular No. 30/2004 dated 16.04.2004, such facilitation would not be possible. The Chief Commissioner, Zone-II, querried as to the percentage of such instances viz. tramp vessels, MANSA representatives stated that it to be less than 1%. The Chief Commissioner, Zone-II, clarified that for such a small percentage of events, change in the policy is not warranted. He further stated that individual cases can be taken up on merits.

10. Regarding the point, “Registration of DEEC, DFRC and other Export Promotion Licences at any of the Mumbai Port”, sponsored by MANSA, Chief Commissioner, Zone-I clarified that such a provision is not existent in the current Import-Export policy. The policy has been changed and specific Port code is allotted to each port and hence the licence has to be registered at the specified port only. Secondly, with the provision of Release Advice, it should not pose any problem in registering the licence at the specified port. Shri Darshan Singh, Jt. Director, DGFT, Mumbai also reiterated the same view. He informed the House that if any change in the name of port registration is requested, DGFT would look into it, expeditiously.

11. Regarding the point, “filing of Regular Bills of Entry by courier companies”, sponsored by Express Industry Council of India, Chief Commissioner, Zone-III, clarified that such a practice can not be allowed as the courier companies have to undergo the conditions as applicable to the CHA under Custom House Agents Licensing Regulations.
The Chief Commissioner, Zone-III requested the members of the Express Industry Council of India, to have a separate meeting with him to discuss about any other issues related to the courier companies. He also said he will hold another meeting on the issue of Courier with Courier Companies and also CHA and Trade to solve the problems.

12. Regarding the point sponsored by the Confederation of Indian Industry, in the matter regarding filing of Manual Bill of Entry, in some specific cases the Chief Commissioner, Zone-I asked Shri Sunil Jain, Jt. Commissioner of Customs, EDI to issue a public notice, as already a Standing Order No. 7931/2006 dated 10.07.2006 is issued on the matter.

With respect to other specific problems faced and or raised in the Open House Meeting by the Trade and various Associations, both the Chief Commissioners, Zone-I and II asked the members to first approach the concerned Commissioners and other senior officers for redressal of their grievances. However if the problems still persisted they may bring up the issues in the Open House Meetings.

13. The meeting ended with thanks to the Chair.

14. The next Open House Meeting will be held on 23.08.2006 at 15.30hrs. The points sponsored for discussion for the next meeting should reach POSITIVELY by 16.8.2006 in the offices of the Chief Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai Zone I, II and III, so that the issues can taken up effectively

Sd/-
(J. S. CHANDRASHEKAR)
Addl. Commissioner of Customs
Chief Commissioner’s Office
Mumbai Zone - I.

Copy to :
1. The Chief Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai Zone II and III.
2. All Commissioners of Customs, Mumbai Zone I, II and III.
3. The Addl./Joint Commissioners of Customs (E.D.I.), Mumbai Customs/Jawahar Custom House, Nhava Sheva/Air Cargo Complex, Mumbai – for immediate uploading of the Minutes on the website.
4. Shri S. S. Sandhu, Zonal Jt. D.G.F.T., Mumbai.
5. Shri Rajeev Jain, Additional Director (Systems), NCH, Mumbai.

Copy for information and wide circulation to:
All Associations with a request to inform all their members to view the Minutes of the Meeting on the Website of Mumbai Customs at www.mumbaicustoms.gov.in