A ‘single point’ for customs
With an objective to remove unnecessary hurdles for trouble-free customs clearance, the government implemented Single Window clearance for imports last year. The industry now should pull up their socks and adopt the changes. CARGOTALK sought the take of s
With the ease of doing customs clearance, the role of custom house agents and freight forwarders has undergone a significant change. In the today’s competition, they need to be an excellent custom broker in the form of Authorised Economic Operator (AEO). Entities that receive an AEO status are considered a ‘ secure’ trader and a reliable trading partner. And, the objective of AEO programme is to provide businesses with an internationally recognised ‘ quality mark’ indicating their commitment to security in the international supply chain. Laying emphasis on easy and secure trade flow, Federation of Freight Forwarders Association in India (FFFAI) organised an exclusive session on ‘Future of Customs Clearance in India’ in the 23rd biennial convention. Explaining how Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT) aims to facilitate EXIM trade and enable hasslefree and smooth operations of trade transactions across borders, Rajendra Kumar Meena, IRS, Additional Comissioner, Single Window, says, “With the strong base of SWIFT, the industry can reduce interface with government agencies, dwell time and cost of doing business. It is a natural step for helping achieve the objective of ‘Digital India’ initiative.”
According to Meena, customs brokers should be prepared in terms of technology, work practices and human resource. Further explaining how the entire process works, Meena says, “The project has enabled the importers to electronically file their regulatory clearance information at a single point only with the customs. The system then identifies consignments and respective regulatory agency from which it requires clearance. It facilitates all regulatory agencies to convey their decision about the release of import goods to customs and to the importer electronically. After the rollout of single window system, the required import permissions from other regulatory agencies are obtained online without the importer having to separately approach these agencies. This has become possible through a common, seamlessly integrated IT system utilised by all regulatory agencies and importers. Under the Single Window Project, ‘Integrated Declaration’ has been introduced wherein the Customs Bill of Entry format has been modified to include all clearance related data which was hitherto required in separate application forms by the agencies. Thereby nine different and separate documents have been replaced by a single electronic declaration.
The objective of AEO programme is to provide businesses with an internationally recognised ‘quality mark’
Single window will soon be extended to exports also.”
Clarifying the typical characteristics of an effective cargo clearance, Meena says, “The targeted outcome i.e. fast and secure supply chain, high level compliance and cost effective operations, can be achieved with a dependency relationship between short and predictable release times, reliable and orderly cargo delivery and efficient information interchange.”
Further highlighting the stark reality, J Krishnan, Partner, S. Natesa Iyer & Company, asks, “Are institutions we have created working or working for the business community, the consumers or themselves?”
Stressing on WCO technology network, he says, “The TeN is the only communication platform for customs and other border agencies, technology companies, international organisations and relevant stakeholders to exchange experiences and information on technologies related to border management.”
“As the main user of this system, customs can access TeN to search for information on the latest technology solutions and products available on the market. Companies can promote their products to customs and border agencies and inform them of the latest applications and innovations. The online forum will also give companies the opportunity to interact with users, answering questions or helping them with any technical aspects,” he continues. Pramod Sant, Vice President, Siemens, listed following global trends in customs: Government demands improvements in performance and efficiency Regional economic collaboration will take on increased importance Increase in risk Increase in trade volume Reorganisation and restructured, roles and responsibilities of government agencies A new wave of approaches and technology will be available to customs Reduction in cost of transactions How has e-Governance gained momentum?
Sant highlighted the changes in custom clearances, that is automated, faster, efficient and transparent process, reduced cost, predictable and reliable timeliness, higher compliance, more skilled manpower, digitisation and IT integration, to name a few. With all the digitisation and ease in business, countering on logistics and customs clearance exists, Sant comes back with ‘teleportation’; the theoretical transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. The tech way
From the technology perspective, Parvinder Singh, ICA 2016 winner and Managing Director, Hans Infomatic shares the complexity of trade in terms of authority, compliance, regulation, standard, law, procedure, conduct etc. “If we go the traditional method, there were lengthy and complex forms to fill, multiple copies, manual paperwork, physical submission, manual calculations and longer processing times. This results in slow growth, inefficiency, bottlenecks and confusion. Technology involvement made it to simple and common forms, EDI and user friendly data input and form uploading,” he says.
Commenting on how technology has changed the process, he points, “The developments led by technology are feature rich and user friendly interface, faster roll out of custom changes, SWIFT clearances, digital signatures and no printing of final copies of SB/BE and TR6 challan,” in adding, “Policies are clear but it does not happen in ground reality. Gap exists in the implementation due to paper trail, human intervention in many process and lack of integration with various government agencies and other logistics and supply chain trade partners.”
“The idea is to bring the bunch of papers in finger tips. There is a need to consider technology as an enabler and investment not cost. Now is a time to make a change by shifting from fixed infrastructure to cloud technology; office boundaries will get blurred with introduction of convergence of data and its accessibility from anywhere. Intelligent system and smarter solutions will bring less dependency on specialists,” he continues.
With the strong base of SWIFT, the industry can reduce interface with government agencies, dwell time and cost of doing business The online forum will also give companies the opportunity to interact with users, answering questions or helping them with any technical aspects The global trends in customs include govt demands improvements in performance, efficiency, increase in risk and increase in trade volume, among more The developments led by technology are feature rich and user friendly interface, SWIFT clearances, and no printing of final copies of SB/BE and TR6 challan