Customs clearance time to be shorter

Clearance time for merchandise imports into the country may reduce to a few hours in the future with the finance ministry setting up a new risk management division under the Central Board of Excise and Customs.

The division, to be headquartered in Mumbai, will comprise 40 officers. Officials said the information technology-intensive division would be responsible for implementing the risk analysis method (RMS) for Customs assessment and examination at all major Customs locations in the country.

The RMS has already been introduced on a pilot basis at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port and the Sahar Airport in Mumbai and will be extended to other locations, including Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi, by June this year.

There has been a considerable decrease in the time taken for clearance of imported goods under the RMS. The assessment time had already been reduced from two days to around 2-3 hours under the pilot RMS, officials said.

The division will also implement the accredited client programme under which companies with a good track record are allowed the facility of "no assessment, no examination" of their cargo at the time of import.

So far around 280 companies which enjoyed the green channel privilege have been automatically given ACP status. These include companies like Maruti, Air India, Ceat, Honeywell, L&T, ABB, General Motors, Siemens and Hewlett Packard.

Clients approved under ACP get assured facilitation. This means that in most cases, consignments are randomly selected for checks by Customs officers, and the Indian Customs EDI System will accept the declared classification, valuation and duty on the basis of importers' self-declaration.