Integrated Declaration to ease bottlenecks for importers

 The Dollar Business Bureau

Good news for the importers, as now they just have to file only one “Integrated Declaration” electronically, whereas currently the process was to submit nine forms to be approved from various government agencies before consignments could be imported. This move has been brought in to remove bottlenecks and to speed up the process. “Integrated Declaration” was developed by the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), where all the information that would be required for import clearance by the government agencies has to be incorporated electronically in the form of Bill of Entry. The custom broker or the importer will need to submit the “Integrated Declaration” at a single gateway, i.e. the Customs gateway (ICEGATE). The trial of “Integrated Declaration” would be on ICEGATE, and it will be available to importers on the field from April 1^st. The nine forms that have been replaced by “Integrated Declaration” comprises of Customs valuation declaration, Customs Bill of Entry, application for import of livestock products, birds and poultry (chicks), application for import of pet animals/aquatic/other animals, form for NOC from FSSAI to importing food items and application for quarantine inspection. Partner and Government agencies (PGA’s), are also planning to implement a system of selective inspection and testing quarantined animals and drug controls, where Integrated Declaration would gather information for the same.  Remarking on the new intended process, CBEC said “This would be very crucial for promoting the ease of doing business.” The Committee of Secretary has decided that, all the PGA’s should voluntarily choose the delivery for documentary examination, risk based testing and physical examination. The consignments that would be charged under the Indian Customs EDI system also comes under Integrated Declaration. However, for the clearance of imported goods under the manual mode, the documents that would be declared by separate agencies will be applied. Various undertakings, declaration and letters of guarantee that are currently on the letterhead of the company, would be included in the Integrated Declaration. The whole process would be executed under the Indian Customs Single Window.  

March 21, 2016 | 04:00pm IST