CBIC Celebrates Completion of 60 years of Customs Act, 1962 at Ambedkar Bhavan in the Capital

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[Arun Goyal, ABS News Service/14.12.2022]

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), Government of India, celebrated the completion of 60 years of Customs Act, ’62 on 13 December, 2022 to mark the enactment of the Act.

Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman presided over as the Chief Guest of the event and Union Minister of State for Finance, Pankaj Chaudhary was the Guest of Honour Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra was present on the dais. Chairman, senior officials from the Ministry of Finance were present on the occasion.

In Covid-19 all the consignments, whether of big or small companies or individuals, were facilitated by liberal and human interpretation of rules which approach cleared consignments in hours instead of days.

Smt. Sitharaman also exhorted young Customs officers to write about Customs – challenges and how they have handled the same. She also urged the officers to be alert towards smuggling of drugs which affects the future generations which affects the population.

In his address on the occasion, Chairman CBIC, Vivek Johri, said that Indian Customs has reengineered and automated various business processes. The Indian Customs has acted on all the points of revenue collection, border control and trade facilitation. The electronic clearance process has helped in expeditious clearance with effective enforcement. He highlighted money laundering and e commerce combination of goods and services in 3D printing and Cryptocurrency payments are new challenges.

Earlier, Member, Customs, Rajiv Talwar, in his welcome address, mentioned that Customs Act has enabled new innovations, such as creation of dry ports (ICDs) so as to make available requisite goods for manufacturing activities in the hinterland.

Mr Sunil Singhal, President and Chairman- M/s Chemical Systems Technologies, mentioned about the initiatives taken by Customs such as e-sanchit, faster clearance through risk based interventions and faster disbursal of refunds including drawback.

Mr. Shubhankar Bhattacharya, Vice President -Tax and Mr Kannan K Deputy General Manager- Customs & FTP- M/s Bosch mentioned about the benefits of reduced time and cost that the AEO programme has provided to their business operations. This internationally recognized certification helps them to be considered as a reliable and secure global trading partner, with attendant advantages.

Mr. Shankar Shinde and Mr. Dushyant Mulani from Federation of Freight Forwarders' Associations in India chronicled the benefits of landmark change brought about through implementation of Faceless assessment. It has substantially reduced dwell time of import clearance by bringing about anonymity and uniformity in sectoral assessment.

The Compendium on Ease of Doing Business Reforms undertaken by CBIC was also released. This is an initiative to put in one place the details of various trade facilitation initiatives. The Compendium is a handy guide that traces the reforms journey that Customs laws and procedures have made over the last few years.