Government of India
Ministry of Finance
Department of Revenue
Central Board of Excise & Customs
******

Circular No. 19 /2016 -Customs

New Delhi, the 20^th 2016

To,
All Principal Chief Commissioners Customs,
All Principal Chief Commissioners of Customs & Central Excise,
All Chief Commissioners of Customs,
All Chief Commissioners of Customs & Central Excise,
All Directors General, Chief Departmental Representative,
All Principal Commissioners of Customs,
All Principal Commissioners of Customs & Central Excise,
All Commissioners of Customs,
All Commissioners of Customs & Central & Excise.

Sub: Allotment of Warehouse Code for Customs Bonded Warehouses - reg.

Madam/Sir,

Please refer to the changes made in the Finance Act, 2016 to shift towards record based control with respect to Bonded Warehouses. It is proposed that each warehouse be allotted a unique warehouse code so that importers can declare the warehouse in which goods shall be deposited, at the into-bond bill of entry stage.

2. Hence a module has been developed in ICES to capture details of customs bonded warehouses licensed in each Commissionerate and generate a warehouse code in the system. The business process is annexed to this circular.

3. Any formation of Central Excise, having control over a customs bonded warehouse, but not connected on ICES, is directed to forward the list of warehouses licensed by them to the Principal Commissioner / Commissioner of Customs having jurisdiction over the nearest EDI enabled Customs station latest by 1^st 2016. These warehouses should be registered by the customs formation following the procedure annexed.

4. Commissioners at EDI locations are requested to complete this exercise for existing warehouses, including those referred by central excise formations, latest by 6^th June, 2016 and confirm the same to the Board.

5. It is proposed to publish the unique warehouse code so generated on the ICEGATE website for the information of trade. This activity will start from the 10^th June 2016 and shall be completed by the 15^th June 2016. From 20^th June 2016,declaring the Warehousing Code in the Bill of Entry would become mandatory for filing Into-Bond and Ex-Bond Bill of Entry. As Ex-Bond Bill of Entries with invalid warehousing code will be rejected, due care may be taken for smooth transition so as to avoid any hardships to the trade.

6. Difficulties relating to I.T. system, if any, may be brought to the notice of National System Manager, ICES ([email protected]).

7. Hindi version follows.

F. No. 484/03/2015–LC (Pt. 1)

(Temsunaro Jamir)
Under Secretary to the Govt. of India

Annexure

An option has been provided in AC bond Role [ACB] called import Warehouse entry.
On clicking the option, the system will prompt for the following details:

• Warehouse Name:
  
• Warehouse Address 1:
Warehouse Address 2:
• Warehouse City:
• Warehouse State:
• Warehouse Pin:
• Warehouse Licence No:
• Warehouse Licence Date:
• Warehouse License Expiry Date:
• Warehouse Jurisdiction (Customs/Central Excise):
• Warehouse Type (Public/Private/Special):
  (U: Public / R: Private / P: Special)

3. On entry of all the aforementioned details from the records available with the field offices, an eight digit Warehousing Code will be generated for each Warehouse.

The Warehouse code nomenclature is as follows:

1. First 4 characters indicates the EDI port of registration(in case of Customs Jurisdiction, it would be the jurisdictional customs commissionerate or nearest Customs Location in case of a customs bonded warehouse licensed by a Central Excise Commissionerate);
2. Fifth character will denote the type of warehouse;and
3. Sixth, Seventh and Eighth characters are running numeric serial Nos.

[For instance, for a public bonded warehouse under Chennai Air Cargo, the code generated shall be MAA 4 U 001.]

Pl note: Section 58A has come into force on 14^th May 2016. As on date no special warehouses exist. The existing warehouses have been given an option to apply under section 58A within one month w.e.f from 14^th May 2016. The entry for Special Warehouse shall therefore not be applicable till such time that a Special warehouse comes into existence.