Circular No. ES/58/2021-22 28th May, 2021
To: Members of the Council
Sub.: Electronic mechanism to amend BL number in Prior/Advance BE with Auto Approval
Dear Member,
JNCH has issued Public Notice No.50/2021 dated 27th May, 2021 regarding an electronic mechanism to amend BL number in Prior/Advance BE with Auto Approval. In this regard, you may kindly refer to Advisory No.13/2021 dated 25.05.2021 issued by CBIC (annexed to JNCH’s Public Notice No. 50/2021).
Please refer to the ICES Advisory No. 10/2021 dated 29.03.2021 describing the changes enabled in Customs EDI System for implementation of provisions of filing of Advance Bill of Entry under Section 46 of Customs Act (as amended vide Finance Act 2021) conveyed vide Public Notice No. 30/2021 dated 29.03.2021.
As explained in the advisory -
While filing Bill of Entry (BE) declaration in the system where MBL is not available, MAWB/BL No. shall be declared as NOMBL (in case of sea) or NOMAWB (in case of air), as the case may be, with mandatory declaration of HBL.
For regularization with Arrival Manifest, the importers have the option to update the MBL in the Bill of Entry at any point in time later to regularize/link the BE with Arrival Manifest through a simple online amendment process which is auto approved in Customs System.
This online amendment process has also been elaborated in the above advisory.
Cases, however, have been reported by Customs where the advance BE was originally filed with BL number (and not NOMBL/NOMAWB) but the same was given incorrectly with some typographical error.
In such cases, importer has to currently approach the Customs officer for updating the correct BL number and regularize the BE.
To ease this process and make it contactless, the same mechanism has been given for NOMBL/NOMAWB cases in Advisory 10/2021 has now been expanded to cover these cases also.
If the declaration of MBL Number/HBL number has been filed wrongly at the time of filing of prior/advance BE, the importer/customs broker can file BE amendment of the IGM details with amend code as A_PBEIGM to update the correct MBL(MAWB)/HBL(HAWB) Number.
The System has been enabled to auto approve such amendments and the BE will be auto regularised by the System if the given BL numbers match with the ones given in the IGM.
This would do away with the requirement of approval process by the Customs officer.
It may be noted that this mechanism is available only to update BL numbers.
Other amendments like changes in container details etc. will have to be done with officer approval as is being done currently.
This mechanism can also be used by the importer to electronically request for BE regularization instead of approaching the Customs officer.
In other words, this mechanism can also be used when the auto regularization of BE by the System has not happened, despite correct BL details.
In case of any difficulty, members may kindly contact the Additional Commissioner (Appraising Main, Import) through email on appraisingmain.jnch@gov.in.
Further, it may be noted that Air Cargo Complex has also issued Public Notice No. 34/2021 dated 27th May, 2021 in this regard.
In case of any difficulty, members may kindly contact the Additional Commissioner of Customs, EDI, ACC, Mumbai through email on ediaccmum5@gmail.com
Members may kindly make a note of the above.
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully,
S. BALARAJU
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
