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Open
House Meeting held on 07-04-2003
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OFFICE
OF THE CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS
MINUTES OF THE OPEN HOUSE MEETING OF THE CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS, MUMBAI ZONE-I and II HELD WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF THE TRADE AND INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION ON 07.04.2003 AT 3.30p.m. IN THE CONFERENCE HALL OF MUMBAI CUSTOMS HOUSE. The Open House meeting for this month was held under Shri Subrata Basu, Chief Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai Zone-I, Shri Joseph Dominic, Chief Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai Zone-II on 07th April, 2003 in the Conference Hall, 2nd flr., New Custom House, Ballard Estate, Mumbai. The following officers were present from the department: 1. Shri K.K.
Agarwal, Commissioner of Customs (General), Mumbai Custom House. The following representatives of the Trade & Industries Associations and the Bombay Custom House Agents Association attended the meeting : 1.
AIIEA (All India Importers & Exporters Association) 2.
BCHAA (Bombay Custom House Agent’s Association) 3.
FIEO (Federation of Indian Exporter Organisation) 4.
All India Manufacturer’s Organisation 5.
Dyestuff Manufacturer’s Association of India 6.
TATA GROUP 7.
Confederation of Indian Industries 8.
Bombay Chambers of Commerce & Industries 9.
Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association 10.
ASSOCHAM 11.
Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited The Chief Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai Zone – I, welcomed all the members of the Trade, Industry and CHAs Association and the officers to the meeting. 2. The minutes of the meeting earlier held on 05.03 .2003 were read and these have been taken as correctly recorded. 3. The representatives of the Trade, Industry and CHA Association raised the following points. I. Points by All India Importers & Exporters Association (a)
Verification of Supplementary DEPB : It was clarified that the Customs will not do the entire drill for detailed verification of supplementary DEPB as is done for original DEPB licences but would be linking supplementary DEPB with the Original DEPB verification file to ascertain if Original DEPB was verified and found to be in order and this exercise is not likely to take more than 3 to 4 days. It was also clarified that instead of 3 stage verification by examining officer, appraising officer and Assistant Commissioner, efforts is being made to reduce one stage so that supplementary DEPB would be verified only by either examining officer or appraising officer and Assistant Commissioner. Efforts is also being made to post back the appraising officer, who have done the DEPB verification work in the Export Commissionerate in the past so that supplementary DEPB verification work could be expedited. (b) Serious problems are being created by Customs at Mulund CFS in the matter of exports under DEPB scheme. Several instances can be given about the unnecessary hair-splitting done by Mulund CFS Customs in the above matter. For e.g. M/s Arihant Spinning Mills have exported “Polyester/Cotton blended dyed spun yarn (Melanges)” (33% Polyester and 67% Cotton, 12% Polyester and 88% Cotton 10% Polyester and 90% Cotton) claiming DEPB under Sr. No. 22(a)@2% under Product code: 90 on the packing material only. Later on the exporter changed its claim to product Group Textile code 89, under Sr. No. 78 by virtue of foot note (b) and accordingly claimed the DEPB @6%. The foot note starts with the wordings “In case of blended textiles. “As per Concise Oxford Dictionary 10th Edition 1999, textile is a type of cloth or woven fabrics. A view was therefore taken by Mulund Customs Officers that the said foot note would not apply to yarn but would apply to woven fabric only. The exporter therefore took up the matter in the Zonal DGFT meeting held on 27th February, 2003, wherein it was decided that blended yarn can be treated as composite item where DEPB rates have been fixed for items separately. In this case cotton yarn attracts 6% DEPB and Polyester Spun Yarn attracts 13% DEPB. Accordingly committee decided that this can be covered under general note –11 of DEPB rate list and party entitled for lowest rate i.e. 6%. Inspite of that the Mulund Customs Authorities wrote back on 10.03.2003 that general DEPB rates list appears to cover `composite’ `assembled’ mechanical goods only whereas, the subject goods are “Blended” yarns. Both constituents are inseparable and composition can be known only after chemical test. Therefore Sr. No. 11 does not appear to cover the blended textile products. The above example brings out clearly the negative mindset exhibited by Mulund Customs and the same is hurting exporters for no fault of theirs. To add to the woes of the Exporters, for several months no meeting of the Watchdog committee has been held at Mulund CFS, thus denying the Exporters a forum to ventilate their grievances. It was clarified that there was genuine doubt over DEPB rate that would be applicable to the “Blended” yarn exported by M/s Arihant Spinning Mills and therefore Customs authorities at Mulund have raised objection. Before receipt of the Zonal DGFT letter deciding the issue, letter dated 10.03.2003 was issued which raised the doubt over 6% rate. However after receipt of Committee’s decision headed by the Zonal DGFT that 6% DEPB rate would be applicable for such export, the party’s claim have been settled. However Zonal DGFT is being requested to get a separate rate notified for blended yarn so as to settle the matter once for all. The Commissioner of Customs (General) clarified that due to pre-occupation, he could not convene Watchdog committee meeting of CFS Mulund in past few months and has now decided to hold Watchdog commettee meetings on every 2nd Thursday of the month for CFS, Mulund. He also informed that the next meeting have accordingly been fixed for 10th April 2003. It was also decided that a matter of principle whenever the Commissioner, who is to preside the Watchdog committee meeting is on leave or otherwise pre-occupied, the 2nd Senior most Officer in the Commissionerate would preside over such meetings. II. Points by Confederation of Indian Industries: (a) As on date, documents pertaining to imports against advance licenses are processed manually for custom clearance. Facility for filing bills of entry through EDI mode for such imports must be taken up immediately so that these imports are also facilitated like other imports. It was informed that NIC have already developed software for processing of documents pertaining to import against advance licenses and DEEC import module have already been notified. The Mumbai Custom House has started its implementation from January, 2003 and is still facing some problems, which requires modification of software. Hence after software is modified and the Mumbai Custom House has been successful in implementation of this module, Nhava Sheva and Air Cargo Complex would also implement it. [ Action : The Commissioner of Customs (General) Mumbai Custom House ] (b) The average time taken at present for clearance of goods imported against advance licenses is 5 to 6 days against 2 to 3 days for goods imported otherwise. When the importer is able to get his normal imports cleared in 2/3 days where he is generally not under time pressure, why he has to wait longer to clear such goods imported for export production. We, therefore, request the Custom authorities to review the current practice and the procedure and simplify the same for expediting the clearance. It was clarified that it is natural that clearance of goods against advance licenses will take little extra time as compared to normal Bills of entry as some additional formalities such as registration of license, execution of bonds, debiting licenses and entry in ADF registers, are to be observed in these B/Es. Further the study indicates that majority of these B/Es are assessed in 2 to 3 days times. (c) Instead of manual registration of advance license, the Customs and the Licensing authorities must device electronic vetting process. Similarly, the debiting of such licenses should be done on soft copy automatically against EDI clearance. This will simplify the operations of the exporters and reduce his transaction cost on exports. It was informed that the Customs is equally interested in implementation of its ICE GATE project as early as possibles so that the various agencies are connected through EDI. Once this is done, the suggestions to dispense with manual registration of such licenses through EDI would be possible. (d) The problem of hardware and software, which is hindering efficient operations, both at Air Cargo Complex and Nhava Sheva, must be critically looked in to and must be addressed on priority basis so as to facilitate Trade. It was clarified that Customs is fully aware with the problems of the hardware and software, both at Air Cargo Complex and Nhava Sheva and is taking all possible steps so that these are resolved at the earliest. III. In
addition to the above points received for discussion, the following points
were raised: It was clarified that the Department is looking into the question as to how the DEEC book is unauthorisely audited by Mrs Durando and Mr. Thorat, who were not authorised to audit DEEC book. At the same time efforts was also made to collect original DEEC S/Bs from Manifest Clearance Department. Manifest Clearance Department has confirmed that they do not have original DEEC S/B with them and therefore the problem continues. As regards the request to grant extension by DGFT, it was agreed that if such request is received from Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited, it would be taken up by Customs with DGFT for extension as the case is likely to take time. Reference was also made to Ministry’s Circular No. 79/2002-Customs dated 27.11.2002 regarding DEEC logging. In reply to that it was mentioned that we have taken up with DGFT and Ministry for clarification of certain points in this regard. Nevertheless meanwhile each case of DEEC logging is to be examined/decided by the concerned officer’s on its own merit on file. [
Action : Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited and The
Commissioner of Customs (Export Promotion), (b) The representative of the M/s Bombay Custom House Agent’s Association stated that at present in case of import consignment, examination report copy is not given to them at all in the EDI System. However in case of re-export, the identity of the re-exported goods is required to established with reference to the import consignment. In absence of examination report it is not possible to do so as to claim the benefit of Notification 94/96-CC dt.16.12.1996 etc. It is therefore requested that in all cases where the question of establishing the identity of the exports goods vis-à-vis the imports goods is required to be established, a copy of the examination report, on request of the importer, duly attested by Customs, be given to them. It was further stated that one such case has happened in Air Cargo Complex, Sahar. It was therefore decided that Bombay Custom House Agent’s Association should give detailed note to the Commissioner of Customs (Imports) Sahar so that he could go into these questions and suggest specific steps that need to be taken in these types of cases. [
Action : Bombay Custom House Agent’s Association and (c) The representative of M/s Bombay Custom House Agent’s Association stated that the Customs has been following the practice of “note and show system” in carrying out minor amendments in manual processing of Bs/E, however the said facility is not being extended in the EDI System. It was therefore requested that “note and show system” was working very well in the manual processing of Bs/E and the same is need to be followed in EDI System as well. It was agreed
in principle to accept such request of note and show system for correction
of minor discrepancies in I.G.M. However it was stated that Bombay Custom
House Agent’ Association would submit request to this effect indicating
the types/nature of errors/discrepancies that needs to be corrected and
that such request would be examined by the Commissioner of Customs (Imports)
Mumbai Custom House in association with the Commissioner of Customs (Imports)
Nhava Sheva Custom House & the Commissioner of Customs (General) Mumbai
Custom House and in consultation with MANSA (Mumbai & Nhava Sheva
Ship Agent’s Association) and BCHAA (Bombay Custom House Agent’s
Association). (d) The representative of BCHAA stated that the computer connectivity need to be provided to testing laboratory in the Mumbai Custom House so that test report could be made available on line to the Department. It was decided that the Commissioner of Customs (General) Mumbai Custom House will examin feasibility of installing a computer terminal and providing an examining officer in the Custom House laboratory itself for putting the test report on computer. [ Action : Bombay Custom House Agent’s Association and The Commissioner
of Customs (General), The next
meeting will be held on 5th May 2003 at 15.30 hours. Points for the said
meeting be sponsored by 25th April 2003 positively.
(
Deepak Kumar ) Copy to: 1. The Chief
Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai Zone-II. |
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