ICES Advisory 17/2020-Further measures to make Bill of Entry Amendments Process contactless and paperless

To : Members of the Council

Sub: ICES Advisory 17/2020-Further measures to make Bill of Entry Amendments Process contactless and paperless

Dear Member,

Air Cargo Customs (Sahar) has issued Public Notice No.86/2020 dated 26th May, 2020 on the above subject. In this regard, JNCH Customs had also issued Public Notice No.70/2020 dated 22nd May, 2020.

To make the Customs clearance process contactless, DG/Systems has been continuously making efforts to add features or restructure processes in the System. You may refer to ICES Advisory 14/2020 dated 14.04.2020 on generation and emailing of PDF copies of eOOC and eGatepass.

While these initiatives have greatly helped members of Trade, one of the areas where physical interface has continued in Imports is the Bill of Entry amendment process. The amendments are filed only in the Service Centre along with a paper copy of the checklist for approval by the proper officer. The amendment fees, if levied by the proper officer, is also collected through manual TR-6 challans.  

Following changes have now been introduced in the System to streamline this process and make it electronic.

a) Online Filing of BE Amendment -

• Facility for filing of BE amendment online through ICEGATE has been operationalized.

• Message id for the same would be CACHI01_A, details of which have been incorporated in the message format published on ICEGATE (https://www.icegate.gov.in/msg_guideline.html ) for the benefit of Trade.

• NIC’s Remote filing software (RES package) has also been upgraded to include amendment filing.

• Once the amendments are filed online, System would que them before the proper officer the same way as is done currently.

• The additions made in Supporting documents table would continue to be auto approved while other amendments, including deletion/modification in supporting documents would require approval by the proper officer.

b) Electronic levying and payment of BE Amendment Fee –

• An option has been added in the Amendment Approval Form to enter amendment fees levied in terms of Levy of Fees (Customs Documents) Amendment Regulations as amended from time to time. 

• Fees can be entered by the appraiser and can be edited by the group AC/DC. Since the field is mandatory, zero can be entered if no fees are to be levied.

• Once the amendment is approved and the Bill of Entry is assessed, the amendment fees will automatically get included in the duty challan for electronic payment through ICEGATE. 

• An email will also be triggered by the System to the Importer/Customs Broker informing about the approval/rejection of the amendment by the proper officer along with the amendment fees levied (in case of approval) or the reasons for rejection.

c) Use of ICETAB for paperless examination- 

• DG Systems has delivered the ICETAB tablet devices to all the major locations across India based on the requests received from the field formations.

• ICETAB provides the shed officers mobile access to the ICES application. 

• The aim is to facilitate the Shed officers in the examination of cargo and help them submit their examination report in ICES immediately on completion of the examination. 

• The PDF version of the first copy is already available in ICES the shed officer to refer to while carrying out the examination and can be viewed in ICETAB now. 

• With the use of ICETAB, the entire examination process is expected to become paperless and significantly faster.

Please note that a state-of-the-art app will also be made available on ICETAB soon which will enable Customs officers to enter examination reports directly from a user-friendly interface and upload pictures taken during examination using the ICETAB camera in the System’s repository. Customs has requested the members of Trade to avail the benefits of online amendment filing.