APRIL 27, 2020

By Anil Kumar Gupta, IRS

THE world is passing through difficult and testing times as it is in the grip of Corona virus Pandemic. It is facing the biggest Challenge of the Century after the Flu Pandemic of 1918-1920 which has shocked the very existence of humanity. The scale of the Challenge is such a mammoth that countries after country are forced to lockdown their country and quarantine the humans. It looks as if the wheels of the world have halted resulting in shutting of Economies.

India is not immune from this Covid-19 Pandemic. Lockdown may cost Rs. 8 Lakh Crores (USD 98). GDP growth is expected to dive to barely 1.9% in 2020, vis a vis 4.2% in 2019. Millions of workers have overnight become jobless. As per ILO, 40 crore Indians may sink into poverty. The World Health Organization (WHO) called India's response to the Corona Pandemic "Impressive". Despite being second most populated federal democratic country with more than 1.35 billion people having different cultures & religions India's decision to go for early lockdown and shut down all domestic and international flights on 23rd March, 2020, when the numbers of Corona positive cases were barely 500 hundred, has been appreciated worldwide specially WHO.

More than the policy decision, the enforcement and implementation of the lockdown in vast country threw many new challenges of ensuing home quarantine as well as supplies of essential food and vegetables, drugs and medicines as well as creation of and supplementing health infrastructure by making arrangements of isolation wards and Corona positive beds in the existing hospitals and other establishments. Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) stands hand in hand with Trade and Industry ensuring no supply disruptions and maintaining business continuity as India fight Covid-19.

Realizing to importance and efficiency of CBIC, the government inducted Chairman and two Members of CBIC in the 3 Important Empowered groups constituted vide MHA order dated 29th March, 2020 under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 for ensuring availability of essential medical equipments, facilitating supply chain and logistics management for availability of necessary items such as food and medicine and for coordinating with private sector, NGO's and International organizations for response related activities.

CBIC, with the dedicated force of 3500 IRS Officers (Indian Revenue Service) and staff of about 35000 rose to the occasion by not only ensuring smooth, swift and hassle free clearance of Import and Export Cargo at Ports, Air Cargo Stations and Land Customs Stations (LCS), but also facilitating faster passenger clearance of thousands of stranded people Indian as well as foreigner arriving and departing at various International airports. Officers and staff of Indian Customs helped in swift clearance of thousands of Indians brought by many Special planes from various countries observing precautions, Social distancing / Masks/Gloves thus following all the norms of proper safety without bothering for the risk involved in handling such passengers. Though Customs Officers have been taking due precautions in passengers and cargo clearances, but many staff/officers while ensuring speedy and swift clearance in Kerala & Mumbai have been infected and quarantined.

CBIC through the team of efficient workers is working day and night for bringing required changes in the Law as well as Rules and Procedure so as the ensure that there is not an iota of delay in clearance and movement essential landed cargo as well as export cargo. Some of such initiatives taken by CBIC during lockdown for relief of trade are -24*7 Customs clearance of EXIM cargo, waiver of late fee on delayed filling of bills of entry of Import consignments from COVID19 affected countries; for facilitation of work from home, computers and related accessories transferred to residence of STIPs; acceptance of documents and request via E-mail to avoid physical visit/contact; Extension in completion of proceeding and filling of Appeals till 30th June, 2020; Exemption of Basic Custom duty and Health Cess on Import of ventilators, face mask, surgical mask, personal protection equipments (PPE), COVID-19 kits etc till 30th Sept, 2020 (Vide Notification on 9th April, 2020).

Again on 14th April, CBIC decided to start electronic clearance i.e. electronic communication of PDF based final e-DOC(electronic Out of Charge) copy of Bill of Entry(BOE) and e-gate pass to Importers/Customs brokers. So that there is minimum Physical Contact and social-distancing is maintained. This is another feather in the cap of CBIC which has taken a series of steps to facilitate and expedite Customs Clearance process, making it more and more contactless as well as paperless to tackle the scourge of covid-19 Pandemic that has roiled export-import (EXIM) trade.

All this has facilitated in processing and clearance of 52000 Import consignment, 50000 Export consignment and delivery of 37000 courier shipments since lockdown, thus ensuring that wheels of supply chain managements kept rolling. Not only this, to support business continuity as India fights COVID-19, Customs have sanctioned 78000 IGST refunds involving Rs.2619 Crores and 134000 drawback claims involving Rs.602 Crores to the exporters providing them the much needed working capital during these days of lockdown since 25th March, 2020. CBIC is currently engaged in expediting the sanction of pending GST & Customs refund which would provide benefits to around 1 Lakh business entities including MSME amounting to Rs.18,000/- Crores approximately.

Though Customs clearance was mandated and included in the list of essential services issued by National Disaster Management Authority(NDMA) under Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), yet GST was not included in essential services hence with the imposition of complete lockdown, the smooth working of GST was halted as GST locations became inaccessible to the officers and hence GST IT system could not be assessed by the CBIC GST officers. Without wasting any time, the entire CBIC team rose to the occasion, and ensured smooth operation by making IT system available for about 13,000 CBIC field offices pan India to facilitate work from home(WFH) on various GST business applications for processing of tax payers GST registration, returns, refunds etc. It is worth to mention that GSTN has so far enabled VPN access to about 1700 state tax officers only while CBIC has provided access to 13085 officers and that too without VPN. In this way CBIC has processed about 18,000 GST refund claims involving sanction of Rs.8200 Crores to the taxpayers in these testing times when every payment matters to the MSME sectors.

Government has also relaxed many provisions & Rules of GST providing relief to taxpayer by extending date of filing GSTR 3B, GST Annual Return for Financial Year 2018-19, date for opting for composition Scheme till 30th June 2020. No interest, late fee & Penalty would be charged from those tax payers with aggregate annual turnover of < than Rs.5 crores.

CBIC team has not only been innovating and introducing new measures to facilitate smooth & swift Customs clearance of EXIM trade as well as GST operations. In addition, officers and staff through various associations such as IRS Association, CENGO (Central Excise, Service Tax and Customs Gazetted Executive Officers), Action Group of Bangalore GST & Customs Zone, IRS woman officers in Mumbai have been doing yeomen services to the humanity in the fight against COVID-19 Pandemic by distributing free food packets, dry ration kits, medicines, PPEs, masks etc to the poor, weaker and needy persons as well as designated Hospitals across India. In addition officers and staff of the CBIC have voluntarily pledged to contribute Rs. 11.5 crores to PM Care Fund.

(The author is an IRS Officer of CBIC and is presently working as Principal Additional Director General, NACIN (National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics). The views expressed by the officer are his personal views.)