Risk management system for Tuticorin Customs

Pursuant to the decision of Central Board of Excise and Customs to introduce the ‘Risk Management System’ in major customs locations, where the ‘Indian Customs Electronic Data Interchange System (ICES)’ is operational, the Tuticorin Customs launched the RMS on 9th October.

According to the Commissioner of Customs, Tuticorin, D.P. Singh, the ever-increasing volumes of international trade pose formidable challenge to the Customs. Hence the traditional approach of scrutinizing every document and examining every consignment will only increase the workload. Moreover, there is always a need to reduce the ‘dwell time’ of cargo at the ports and also to reduce the transaction costs in order to enhance the competitiveness of the Indian businesses. At this juncture, advancements in the field of information technology have come to the rescue of the Customs in the form of RMS, “which is expected to strike a balance between facilitation and enforcement and to promote a culture of compliance”.

With the introduction of RMS, the present practice of routine assessment, concurrent audit and examination of all Bills of Entry will be discontinued and focus will be on the quality assessment, examination and Post Clearance Audit of Bills of Entry selected by RMS Bills of Entry and Import General Manifest filed electronically in ICES through the service centre or the Indian Customs and Central Excise Electronic Commerce/Electronic Data interchange (EC/EDI) Gateway will be transmitted to RMS.

It will process the data through a series of steps and produce an electronic output for the ICES. This output will determine whether the Bills of Entry will be taken up for action, appraisement or examination or both or be cleared after payment of duty and out of charge given directly without any assessment and examination. The short of levy, if any, detected during the Post Clearance Audit to be done within 48 hours of clearance of goods, will be recovered from the importers as per law, Mr. Singh said.

The Joint Commissioner, Tuticorin Customs will be the administrator of the RMS and he will be available at 0461 – 2352078 or jagan@tuticorincustoms.org

The Additional Director General (Systems), Mumbai, B. Bhattacharya, launched the system.