Circular No. ES/315 /2018-19 December 13, 2018
To: Members of the Council
Sub: Proper declaration of description of goods in Import General Manifest (IGM) by shipping lines
Dear Member,
We would like to inform you that JNCH (Nhava Sheva) has issued a Public Notice No. 154/2018 dated 7th December, 2018 regarding proper declaration of description of goods in Import General Manifest (IGM) by shipping lines.
Your kind attention is invited to the Public Notice No 161/2016 dated 28.11.2016 (including subsequent Public Notices on DPD), Public Notice No 33/2018 dated 07.03.2018 (Mandatory declaration of GSTIN, IEC and email address of importer in the Bills of Lading obtained by shipper) issued by JNCH and also provisions of Handling of Cargo in Customs Areas Regulations, 2009 as amended by Notification No. 96/2010 dated 12.11.2010.
It may be informed that one of the basic objective of requirement to file “Import General Manifest (IGM)” is to notify Customs department of importing country by carrier of goods about the details of goods arriving at such customs location. Therefore, carrier/ shipping lines are required to declare details of cargo, shipper, consignee, number of packages, kind of packages, description of goods, bill of lading number and date, vessel details etc. in the IGM.
It has been observed by Customs that some carriers do not declare the correct and proper description of goods in the IGM filed by them. There are cases where proper description of goods was available in the bill of lading, but it was not declared in the IGM. There is need to have proper declaration of goods both in the bill of lading and also in the IGM and the two must correspond. Moreover, in many cases the description of the goods was found to be imprecise and generic e.g.’ miscellaneous items’ or ‘household items’. While it is true that it is not possible to specify the description of all the goods when a bill of Lading covers multiple items or associated goods, care must be taken to ensure that the description is specific and precise and at least, the major item is correctly described. As far as possible, the description should also contain the size and specification of goods. In the absence of complete details, it becomes difficult to resort to “pre-arrival processing” or “Non- intrusive inspection” and the latter particularly gets delayed.
In case of any difficulty, members may kindly contact the Deputy / Assistant Commissioner in charge of DPD Cell, NS-II or Appraising Main (Export) through email/ phones (dpd.amijnch@gmail.com or appraisingmain.jnch@gov.in/ 022-27244959, 022-27244979).
This is for your information.
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully,
S. BALARAJU
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
