FEBRUARY 13 , 2016

By V K Agarwal, General Manager - EXIM, MIRC Electronics Ltd.

FROM last 3 months due to frequent failure of system or partial failure or due to linkage problem in between banks and Icegate, duty is not being paid online. Although, it delays the delivery of the consignments but interest is being levied even for the non-operation day.

Suggestion: Henceforth interest should be charged after 5 days of the assessment instead of 2 days; in such cases ACP importers should be permitted to take delivery of URGENT containers without payment of duty with some capping, say max. 3 containers of cumulative duty not more than 30 lacs subject to the condition duty to be deposited within 24hrs on operation of the system / linkage in between bank and Icegate is resumed.

On Thursday, the custom duty could not be paid at National level due to problem in the system.

The next day duty was paid but was not reflecting in the system, hence No Delivery on this day as well. 2nd Saturday & Sunday being a holiday no delivery for four days due to system problem, in such a situation ACP clients are also stuck up.

Such issues need to be tackled on an urgent basis if the Government wants its Make in India slogan to succeed.