By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, DEC 22, 2013: THE curtain over the year 2013 is going to come down in less than nine days, and if one takes a hard look at the smuggling trends one may find it more eventful and challenging for the CBEC. Given the soaring graphs of gold and silver seizures in the wake of high tariff wall, CBEC has taken several initiatives to strengthen its anti-smuggling efforts. The key highlights of the steps taken are as follows:

++ India has signed various Customs Mutual Assistance Agreements, memorandum of understanding with various countries to promote sharing of intelligence and provide investigative assistance to curb duty evasion;

TIOL Adds: CBEC annually signs Mutual Assistance Agreements with different countries and that is how the tally has more than 50 such numbers but there is no record available on how many times either India has made use of such assistance to bust a gold smuggling syndicate or one of the contracting states has really taken our help to curb either outright smuggling or commercial frauds. It is indeed good to join hands with the Customs Networks worldwide but it would be better to make use of such networks.

++ Efforts are on for creation of seven new Customs Overseas Intelligence Network (COIN) Posts at Beijing and Guangzhou (both China), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Bangkok (Thailand), Brasilia (Brazil) and Pretoria (South Africa) to assist Customs formations in India in addressing issues relating to commercial frauds, smuggling, Trade based money laundering etc.

TIOL Adds: Such an effort is too late and too little. Given the scale of commercial frauds and the flagrant violation of Rules of Origin and also the fact that India has signed several Free Trade Agreements in the recent years, it is hugely in interest of India to creat all these posts quickly and put its Customs officers in place for gathering vital commerical intelligence. Merely signing of trade agreements will not do unless India filters the entry of kind of goods, their value and the quality. In fact the two posts proposed now for China should have been sanctioned the day the Council of Ministers decided to enhance trade relations with China. Similarly, when we signed FTA with Thailand and then began cajoling ASEAN for a pact, it was necessary to immediately create a post in Thailand. With Brazil being a key member of the BRICS, it is our obvious selection for posting one Customs officer there. Similarly, South Africa is yet another BRICS Member, which deserves greater attention from the Indian Customs. Dhaka and Colombo are our neighbours and they need to be watched from security perspective as well.

++ An application (named Currency Declaration Form or CDF) has been implemented in Bangalore, Cochin, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai international airports. The application enables capture of details of currency declared by passengers at the time of arrival at or departure from international airports. The CDF application will enable transmission of data to departments such as DRI, FIU, etc. A fresh application for the CDF functionality has been developed and the first round of UAT (User Acceptance Testing) has been done. Once the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) module is developed the CDF module is developed, the CDF module will be integrated.

++ Procurement of four High Energy X-ray Cargo/Pallet Scanners (HEXS for installation in the Trade Facilitation Centres at Line of Control (Loc) at Salamabad and Chakan - da -Bad along Indo-Pak border in J&K.

TIOL Adds: Such an effort to procure High Energy X-ray is indeed terribly delayed for India. Given the national security perspective and also the mechanisation of the Customs clearnance worldwide, procurement of such equipments should be a regular exercise and upgradation should also be given priority for the existing equipments.

++ Installation of One X-ray Baggage Inspection System (XBIS) with Z- Backscatter technology at LCS, Attari Rail as a pilot project.

++ Approval of 3 Mobile Gamma Ray Scanners and 4 Advanced X-ray Inspection systems.

++ Deployment of Three drive through container scanners having higher throughput of about 120 containers per hour at major ports like Nhava Sheva , Cochin and Mundra port and one Pilot Rail Scanner at Gateway of Nhava Sheva.