Customs dept to upgrade online clearance of exports

NEW DELHI: The Customs Department today said that it would upgrade its online system by June at major ports, airports to clear the exports in a hassle-free manner.

"By June end this year, the modern Electronic Data Interchange will be operational, which will ensure hassle-free trading facility to exporters," Delhi Chief Commissioner of Customs A K Buck said here at a Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) function.

With Electronic Data Inter-change (EDI), all the documents relating to exports and imports would being processed on-line.

The cabinet has already cleared the project and the equipments have arrived, Buck said.

"The government is coming up with massive hardware which will take care of all the problems of the exporters and take care of their future requirement to increase the volume of trade," FIEO Director General Ajay Sahai said.

Through the modern EDI systems, the exporters will easily see their transaction bills, shipment bills, objections put by the custom officials on their duty drawbacks, Sahai said.

EDI in all the thirteen agencies involved in the foreign trade like ports, air ports will be operationalised by June end this year.

The government had already said that all EDI-equipped ports would be treated as a single port from January 2009 to reduce procedural delays for exporters and importers. This would mean that the traders would no longer require the Telegraphic Release Advice (TRA) from another port for moving products from one coast to another.

Commenting on the delayed payment of drawbacks, Buck said: "If the delay is intentional, we are ready to take the liability and will take actions immediately."