Mangaluru: Mangalore Customs Commissionerate has registered record high revenue collection at Rs. 1648.27 crores showing over 21% increase compared to revenue in 2015-16. In the last 8 years, the Commissionerate’s revenue has gone up by 320%.
The trade facilitation initiatives taken by the department over the past year includes inter alia SWIFT (Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade), unaccompanied baggage module in Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Authorised Economic Operator (AEO), with the aim of reducing the dwell time and transaction costs for the trade/public. In order to further facilitate the trade and to resolve issues expeditiously, meetings of the Customs Clearance Facilitation Committee (CCFC) were held regularly with the representatives of the Departments/agencies involved in Customs clearance process as also the members from trade and industry. The facilitation is 70.56% for bills of entry (for Imports) and 83.57% for shipping bills (for export). Further the time attributable to customs clearance is just 6.71% for import bills and 19.52% for export bills, out of the total time taken for completion of import and export procedures.
As regards passenger facilitation at Mangaluru International Airport during the last year, out of the total passengers, 97.62% of the passengers opted for green channel. The Commissionerate has also received quite an encouraging feedback from passengers, travel agents and other stake holders about the utility of online Customs Guide for International Passengers launched this year. This guide is an interactive platform for obtaining detailed information about the rules and eligibility of a passenger arriving into India (http://customsmangalore.gov.in/baggage).
The efforts undertaken by this Commissionerate to mobilize additional revenue by way of recovery of arrears, monitoring of export promotion schemes, project imports, scrupulous verification during assessment, anti-smuggling measures etc has yielded substantial results to the tune of Rs.20.54 crores. The newly created Special Intelligence and Investigation Branch (SIIB) and Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) have substantially contributed in detection of commercial frauds and anti-smuggling activities.
Smuggling cases
Last financial year, the officers of Customs at the Mangaluru International Airport detected 152 smuggling cases valued over Rs.5.45 crores. Out of these, 22 cases are of smuggling of gold in various modes and forms of concealment, totally weighing 11.60 kgs and valued at Rs.3.44 crores. In 16 cases, assorted foreign currency equivalent to INR 1.57 crores was seized from passengers going abroad. In the remaining 114 cases, officers seized 1737 cartons of foreign made cigarettes, 13.94 kgs of tobacco and 1400 pouches of gutka totally valued at Rs.44.48 lakhs, which were attempted to be smuggled into the country during 2016-17. The department has also mopped up revenue of Rs.7.46 crores by disposing of seized and confiscated goods.
The Commissionerate is taking concerted efforts towards getting certification by the Bureau of Indian Standards to further improve and sustain quality of services delivered to clients, stated release from Commissioner Dr M Subramanyam.
