26th January, the foundation day of 'World Customs Organisation' (WCO), is celebrated worldwide as the 'International Customs Day'. This year the celebrations acquire added significance because the WCO completes fifty years.
As part of the world wide celebrations, the Indian Customs have organised seminars and workshops inviting the trade and industry and the departmental officers to suggest as to how the Customs can meet the challenges of tomorrow.
In fact, what the Indian Customs needs is only a clear vision. And that is to enable anyone engaged in cross-border trade to say, "I am able to send my goods to any part of the world as easily as I can send my goods to say Chennai or Calcutta. I am able to get my goods as easily from any part of the world as I can from, say Delhi or Mumbai."
Similarly, a traveller must be able to say, "I am able to walk through the airports as freely when I go abroad or come back as I do when I fly out or back from any other place in the country".
Pursuit of this single vision can bring about radical changes. Cynics may dismiss the vision as impractical. In fact, it is quite easy to attain.
First step is to settle for a single rate of duty, with hardly any exemptions. That will eliminate most of the steps involved in assessment. Most disputes of classification and of eligibility to exemptions will vanish.
Second step is to enable filing the bill of entry or shipping bill and payment of duty from a remote location through Internet This can quite easily be done, even with the available technology.
Clearances can be granted through Internet. In any case, with import licensing abolished and single rate of customs duty, there would hardly be any need to hold up clearances. Payment of duty should be no problem, because even now it is possible to authorise credit card debits through Internet.
If need be, suitable deposit accounts, like the central excise personal ledger account (PLA) can always be maintained, electronically by the Customs. If they can't do it, certainly banks can help them.
Once these two steps are taken, I can sit in my office, file the bill of entry or shipping bill, remit the duty, get the clearances and let my multi-modal operator walk my cargo through the Customs.
Similarly, as a traveler, I should be able to file my declarations as a passenger from remote locations and remit the duty electronically and walk through the Customs.
What about problems of valuation, examination and duty drawback ? Valuation should not be a hassle if the Customs have electronic access to data on 'contemporaneous imports'. In case of doubt, provisional assessment can always be resorted to, as the Customs do in 'related party - special valuation branch' cases.
Examination need not be resorted to for each consignment. Better intelligence gathering can always eliminate the need to put a policeman behind every transaction. Most exports can get routed through the scheme of all industry rate of duty drawback. Rates can easily be fixed up with the available data on input-output norms and uniform rate of duty. Other export promotion schemes can straightaway be abolished.
The Customs have to 'Just Do It', if they have the vision and will.
