Date:24 January 2012

The CBEC’S TABLEAU has been selected for participation in the Republic Day Parade at Rajpath 2012.

Date:12 January 2012

Users can now avail facility of e-Payment through ICEGATE for all Custom Locations from any of the following authorized Banks w.e.f. 16th Jan, 2012.

List of Banks

S.No.	Name of Banks
1.	State Bank of India
2.	Punjab National Bank
3.	Bank of India
4.	Indian Bank
5.	UCO Bank
6.	United Bank of India
7.	Union Bank of India
8.	Bank of Maharashtra
9.	Corporation Bank
10.	IDBI Bank
11.	Bank of Baroda
12.	Canara Bank
13.	Indian Overseas Bank
14.	Central Bank of India
15.	Vijaya Bank
16.	Syndicate Bank
17.	Andhra Bank
18.	Dena Bank
19.	Oriental Bank of Commerce
20.	Allahabad Bank

Date:03 January 2012

Press Note - Service Tax Refund

An announcement was made by Hon’ble Finance Minister in the Budget Speech 2011 for introducing a simplified scheme for the refund of service tax paid on services used for export of goods on the lines of drawback of duties.

To implement the simplified scheme, the Government has issued notification No. 52/2011 - Service Tax effective 3rd January 2012 that will provide average rates of service tax refund, ranging from 0.03% to 0.20% of the F.O.B. value of export, for a wide range of goods exported from India. The average rate of refund is in respect of 18 identified services used beyond the factory gate.

As in the case of payment of duty drawback, the service tax refund will be enabled by the Indian Customs EDI System resulting in the amounts getting directly credited into the exporters’ bank accounts within a few days of confirmation of export without additional export documentation. Customs Officers have separately been vested with powers of Central Excise/Service Tax Officers for this purpose.

The scheme adds to the e-enabled service delivery to exporting community, limits public interface as well as reduces transaction costs in obtaining refunds.

Date:19 December 2011

In order to incorporate legislative changes, some changes in the message format of Shipping Bill (CACHE01) are going to be implemented very shortly, users are advised to note these changes and do the needful at their end.

To see changes please click here.

Date:4 November 2011

ICEGATE Awarded e-ASIA Award

Indian Customs EDI Gateway (ICEGATE) has been awarded the prestigious e-ASIA award by the Asia Pacific Council for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (AFACT) in their annual convention held at Chinese Taipei on 4th Nov. 2011 for Trade Facilitation. This international recognition follows other award in 2011 i.e. National award for e-governance (Gold) and Digital Inclusion award by SKOCH Foundation.

Date:24 October 2011

Advisory for SMTP, the process for the target audience of Trade and site-level Customs Officers:

• The party (Shipping Agent/MLO) must correctly specify the required SMTP parameters in IGM. The fields MLO Code (10-char PAN no.), Carrier (Transporter) Code (10-char PAN no.), Destination ICD (6-char code like INTKD6) and Bond Number (10-char bond no.) must be specified for all line records. If Consol Manifest is filed subsequently, then the same must be re-specified. Additionally, Cargo Movement field in IGM should be specified as ‘TI’. All lines under process must be containerized (type ‘C’ or ‘CP’ in IGM).
• The bond number specified in the IGM lines may be either (i) in name of the MLO (1st party) or (ii) in name of the Carrier (Transporter) (3rd party). In case of 3rd party bond, the authority from bond holder to MLO must also be registered (one-time process only). The bond to be specified must be of type ‘TP’ or ‘GB’. These are continuous bonds and adequate balance must be maintained in them. Bank Guarantee (as specified percentage of the bonds) are also required – which is specified during registration of bond. For bond management, regular BOND module in ICES 1.5 is to be used. For Bond Authority registration, TP Module (under ACT role) provides required option. TP module also provides report/view of latest bond balance, transaction history etc.
• The MLO must open a PLA account with adequate balance from which TP fees (20 rupees per approval) may be automatically debited. When a/c is depleted, PLA module can be used to re-credit additional amount through bank challan. Party should not open multiple PLA accounts.
• The SMTP approval process is automatically triggered by the Inward Entry process. The process works in the background without any manual intervention and a number of SMTPs are generated by system based on the parameters specified in the IGM. Further, based on the SMTP, ICD IGMs are also automatically generated at respective ICDs automatically. Trade need not file any IGM at the ICD. SMTP approval also automatically generates EDI messages to Port/Terminal, Transporter and MLO/SA. SMTP Approval Order can be printed from the TP Module. A copy of this printable file is also emailed through ICEGATE to the respective MLO/SA.
• This automatic approval process may fail due to various reasons like (i) required parameters as stated earlier may not have been correctly specified in IGM, (ii) Unavailability of proper bond/BG, balance therein or authority thereon, (iii) unavailability/depletion of PLA a/c etc. In such case, the party must approach the local Customs Officer in charge of SMTP approval. The ICES TP Module provides a form to manually approve the TP request. If there is any of the above-mentioned problems, the same will be alerted on system and party can carry out necessary remedial measure (say for instance, if PLA a/c is out of balance, fresh deposit may be made through challan), and again the TP approval process may be tried out on system. If everything is fine, then system will accord SMTP approval and also complete the process by carrying out the same set of actions as stated in point #d. The form mode is also useful when party has not specified SMTP parameters in IGM till Entry Inward date. In this case, party will first amend IGM to include SMTP parameters and then approach the SMTP Officer to approve the request on system through form.
• Some queries/reports are already available in TP Module. More queries/reports are being provided shortly. The TP Approval order contains the latest bond and PLA balance information. TP Approval Order can be generated at any time from system by specifying either (i) TP No & Date or (ii) IGM No. & Date, ICD Code and Bond No.
• For any site which is starting SMTP module for the first time in ICES 1.5, initial configuration is required. TP Approval Form (under ACT role) provides the one-time site-configuration option, where the bond rates are to be specified. Additionally, a parameter ‘CB required’ is also to be specified. This option is normally set as ‘N’ unless Empty Container Bond Debit Module is also implemented in the site. It may be stated that the TP Module is an integrated module comprising sub-modules for (i) SMTP Approval (TP), (ii) CFS Cargo Movement Approval (CFS) and (c) Empty Container Bond Debit (CB) Approval. The module also comprises forms for TP Bond Authority, TP Bond Recredit, CB Bond Recredit and PLA account management. The Authorized Customs Officer at all sea sites having the role ACT can access these forms. Some other ICES modules like CFS Gate Module (under GAT role), Bond Module (under RBE role) are also associated with this module.

Date:10 October 2011

For trade facilitation and reduction in use of papers in customs processing format of Exchange Control copy of Shipping Bills is proposed to be revised. For more information and draft format of Exchange Control Copy of SB, please click here. Trade is requested to go through the same and send feedback at the e-mail id icegate.feedback@icegate.gov.in

Date:1 September 2011

Awarded Skoch Digital Inclusion Awards 2011 E-GOVERNANCE CBEC
ICEGATE UPGRADE PROJECT
Physical presence for customs clearance of import/ export goods, delays and long queues for payment of duties is a thing of the past. ICEGATE - the customs portal - receives over 7.49 million hits per day benefiting 6.72 lakh importers I exporters, 9,000 custom house agents, 10,000 Central Board of Excise 81 Customs officers and nearly 800 institutional partners. The ICEGATE provides e-payment facility as well as electronic disbursal of export incentives such as Duty Drawback. In India 2010-11, customs duty amounting to 2,700 crore rupees was collected through e-payment facility. ICEGATE makes the customs clearance process transparent as well as , efficient on account of facilitation and also leads to reduction of transaction costs. Conterred this highest independent honour in lndia on 1- September 2011 at New Delhi.

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ICEGATE (Indian Customs EDI Gateway) is an e-commerce portal of the Indian Customs which offers services such ase-filing of Bills of Entry (Import Goods Declaration);Shipping Bills (Export Goods Declaration); and EDI between Customs and its Trade Partners for IGM, EGM, Customs Duty Payment and Drawback Disbursal through electronic messages. Trade partners can use communication modes such as e-mail; Web-upload; FTP to transact business on ICEGATE. ICEGATE is also involved in Data exchange between Customs and various licensing and regulatory agencies. Services available on ICEGATE website include, e-payment, on-line registration for IPR, Tracking of Document Status, online verification of import licenses, Importer Exporter (IEC) code status etc.