Faceless Customs Clearance - A Blessing or an Agony
Faceless Customs Clearance - A Blessing or an Agony
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) introduced the faceless, paperless, and contactless Custom Clearance Process under the “Turant Customs” program. This process would be an anonymous assessment process, automated clearance of bills of entry, and digitisation of the necessary Custom papers and documents.
We might think that automation and digitisation of Customs processes would help in reducing corruption and would supposedly make the process easy and seamless. However, Freight Forwarders have a different story to tell.
Before moving to the nitty-gritty of the Faceless Assessment Process, we need to know how this process came into existence and who would be in charge of running the system.
The customs process automation started in the year 2005 and aimed at the non-personnel clearance of 80% of the imports being made. The faceless clearance assessment process applies to the remaining 20% of the imports.
The faceless assessment would be available at all importing ports of the country and would be a centralised process. A particular freight would be assigned to an anonymous clearing officer by the software system, who would undertake the process of assessing the freight.
This program is going to be handled by the Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management, Government of India.
As we have already pointed out, it would reduce the extensive corruption in the world of Custom Clearance. Not knowing the customs officer would cut down a lot of unaccounted transactions. The digitisation would make the process smart and savvy. Data, being stored in the electronic format would help in several analyses and surveys which would help in better quality assessment and keep the system in sync.
The import and export business is more complex than it looks. The trade runs on the immaculate management of space and time, supported by a top-notch supply chain. For a country with a steady mentality, changes are not readily welcomed. The digitised faceless process has resulted in a significant increase of delay, mainly because of anonymous clearance officers who know nothing about the clearing agent.
Putting it this way, every importing port so long had its dedicated clearing officers and clearing agents. There was a sense of acquaintance and the officers used to respect the goodwill of the better clearing agents whom they knew had their papers clear. However, when the same clearance task started getting assigned to an officer from a different part of the country, it became necessary for him to go through the entire assessment process of checking all the papers. Thus, instead of reducing time, the faceless process became more time-consuming.
In the import-export business, time is money. A cargo sitting at the dock for a day or two would attract heavy demurrage, thus increasing the cost and pulling back the profit margins of firms.
Though many critics have criticised this faceless process openly, many believe that the new process is a positive change the clearance officers are purposefully delaying the process for you know what reasons.
India still has a long way to go before it becomes completely digital. What our leaders might have to find is the right blend between the online and offline processes. As our Prime minister rightly said, “India, with the right blend of the physical and the virtual, can emerge as the global nerve center of complex modern multinational supply chains in the post-Covid-19 world.”
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