|
Government of India
Ministry of Finance
Department of Revenue
Central
Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs
Circular No. 10/2020-Customs
Room No: 227A, North Block, New Delhi
Dated 07thFebruary, 2020
To,
Principal Chief Commissioners / Chief Commissioners / Principal
Commissioners / Commissioners of Customs
Subject: Electronic sealing —
Deposit in and removal of goods from Customs bonded Warehouses-reg.
Madam
/ Sir,
The Warehouse (Custody & Handling of Goods) Regulations, 2016, the
Special Warehouse (Custody & Handling of Goods) Regulations, 2016, Warehoused
Goods (Removal) Regulations 2016, Manufacture and Other Operations in Warehouse
(no. 2) Regulations, 2019 and
circular 17/2016-Cus prescribe the affixation of a
one-time-lock for transport of goods to be deposited in a warehouse or removed
therefrom.
2. The regulations require that goods arriving at the
warehouse from a customs station shall be affixed with a one-time-lock with its
serial number endorsed upon the bill of entry for warehousing and the transport
document. The warehouse keeper or bond officer, as the case may be, is required
to inspect the seal and when it is found intact, permit the goods to be unloaded
at the warehouse.
Circular 17/2016-Cus dated 14th May 2016
prescribes that in case of removal of goods from a customs station for deposit
into a warehouse, the container or means of transport (closed trucks) should be
affixed with a one-time-lock by the proper officer at the customs station. A
similar procedure has been provided under the Warehoused Good (Removal)
Regulations, 2016, for removal of warehoused goods from one warehouse to another
and from a warehouse to customs station for export and also the Manufacture and
Other Operations in Warehouse (no. 2) Regulations, 2019. Also, the Principal
Commissioner of Customs /Commissioner of Customs is duly empowered to permit
movement of goods without affixation of OTLs, where the nature of goods or their
manner of transport so warrant (e.g. Liquid Bulk Cargo transported through Pipe
Lines and Over Dimensional Cargo).
3. Subsequently, the Board has
prescribed RFID self-sealing for export of containerized cargo. Circulars
36/2017, 37/2017 and 41/2017 – Customs prescribe the use of “RFID tamper proof
one-time-bolt seal” and providing of readers / procedure for its use by Customs.
It has now been decided by the Board that RFID sealing shall be extended to
transport of goods for deposit in a warehouse as well as removal therefrom.
Therefore, where ever the Warehousing Regulations (referred in para 1 above)
prescribe affixing of a “One Time Lock”, the importer or owner of the goods
shall use RFID anti-tamper one-time-locks (hereinafter referred as “RFID OTL”).
4. The RFID OTLs
shall be sourced from the vendors whose names appear in the list placed on the
website of the CBIC (please see weblink alongside to circular 36 & 37/2017 on
www. cbic. gov. in)
4.1 Considering the fact that goods may be removed
through a variety of vehicles, different types of RFID OTLs, such as bolt seals
(already specified by circular 36/2017-Cus) or wire – cable seal shall be used.
The specifications, data elements and procedure to be used under the Regulations
for Warehousing shall be as follows:
4.2 Seals
((i) For containers
(RFID One-Time-Bolt Seal)
As prescribed under
circular 36/2017-Customs dated 28th August 2017
(ii) For closed body vehicles (RFID Wire Cable seal)br>
(a) Each seal shall be a one-time-lock bearing a unique serial number and
brand of the vendor in the format ABCD XXXX XXXX, where ABCD stands for the
brand of the vendor and X (8 digit) is a numerical digit from 0-9.
(b)
The RFID seal shall conform to ISO 17712:2013 and ISO/IEC 18000-6 Class 1 Gen 2
which is globally accepted in industrial applications and can be read with the
use of UHF (i.e. 860 MHz to 960 MHz) Reader-Scanners.
(c) The
manufacturer or vendor, as the case may be, shall be in possession of
certifications required for conformance of the ISO standard ISO 17712:2013
namely, clauses 4, 5 and 6 (as applicable to cable-wire seals)
(d) Before
commencement of sales, the vendor shall submit self-certified copies of the
above certifications to the Risk Management Division (RMD).
4.3 Readers
The specification of Readers to be deployed shall be as prescribed under
circular 41/2017 —Customs dated 30.10.2017.
4.4 Software & Application
(a) The data elements to be captured in the web-application in the case of
removal goods from a customs station to a bonded warehouse shall be as follows:
(i) IEC (Importer Exporter Code)
(ii) Bill of Entry Number.
(iii) Date
(iv) RFID OTL number
(v) Date of sealing
(vi)
Time of sealing
(vii) Container Number (where cargo is containerized or
else not required)
(viii) Registration number of vehicle
(ix)
Warehouse code
(x) Customs location code
(b) The data elements to
be captured in the web-application in the case of removal goods from a warehouse
to a customs station for export shall be as follows:
(i) IEC (Importer
Exporter Code)
(ii) Shipping Bill Number.
(iii) Date
(iv)
RFID OTL number
(v) Date of sealing
(vi) Time of sealing
(vii) Container Number (where cargo is containerized or else not required)
(viii) Registration number of vehicle
(ix) Customs location code
(x) Warehouse code
(c) The data elements to be captured in the
web-application in the case of removal goods from a warehouse to another
warehouse (section 67):
(i) IEC (Importer Exporter Code)
(ii) Bill
of Entry No.
(iii) Date
(iv) Warehouse code (origin)
(v)
Warehouse code (destination)
(vi) RFID OTL number
(vii) Date of
sealing
(viii) Time of sealing
(ix) Container Number (where cargo
is containerized or else not required)
(x) Registration number of vehicle
4.5 Procedure
(a) All licencees of customs bonded warehouses shall
have to procure Readers for scanning of RFID OTLs at the bonded warehouse at
their own cost.
(b) The licencee shall also procure RFID OTLs from the
vendors for providing the same to importer, owner, exporter or in case of
private bonded warehouses for their own use. It is clarified that licencees are
free to procure RFID OTLs from any one or more vendors.
(c) The vendors
shall be required to provide Readers to Customs locations. Readers already
deployed by vendors to Ports and ICDs for RFID sealing can also be used for this
procedure. Air Cargo Complexes, CFS and LCSs are also covered under this
procedure for transport of bonded goods.
(d) Any importer permitted to
remove goods for deposit in a warehouse shall obtain an RFID seal from the
Warehouse where the goods are to be deposited.
Provided that for
warehouse to warehouse transfer the owner of the goods shall procure a RFID seal
from the destination warehouse.
(e) Vendors shall ensure that the TID
number is captured in their data base and warehouse code of the licencee is
linked to the same at the time of sale of seals.
(f) Vendors shall ensure
that data can be uploaded from interne enabled Readers as well as desktops.
(g) Circular No 19/2016- Cus dated 20th May 2016 prescribes that the
importer shall declare the warehouse code in the Bill of Entry for warehousing.
The Out of Charge officer releasing the cargo for deposit in a warehouse is
advised to match the warehouse code declared in the bill of entry with that
linked to the seal. This procedure shall dispense the need for securing any
space availability certificates by importers.
(h) The exporter of
warehoused goods will b: obligated to declare the physical serial number of the
RFID OTL at the time of filing the online integrated shipping bill or in the
case of manual shipping bill, before the container or cargo is dispatched from
the warehouse.
(i) In case the RFID OTL is found to be tampered at the
Customs Station at the time of export, then mandatory examination would be
carried out by the Customs authorities.
(j) In case at the time of
arrival of the goods at the warehouse, the RFID OTL is found to be tampered,
then the licencee shall not permit unloading of the goods and shall inform the
bond officer [Please refer sub-regulation 5(1) and (7) of the Warehouse Custody
& Handling of Goods) Regulation, 2016 and Regulation 10(1)(ii) and 11(ii) of
Manufacture and Other Operations in Warehouse (no. 2) Regulations, 2019].
(k) Under Regulation (5) of the Warehoused goods (Removal) Regulations 2016,
and Regulation 10 of Manufacture and Other Operations in Warehouse (no. 2)
Regulations, 2019, the importer or owner is required to produce an
acknowledgement of the due arrival of the goods. With the introduction of the
procedure contained in this circular, the “trip report” generated by scanning
the RFID OTL at the destination customs station or warehouse, shall be printed
and retained for records by the customs station, bond officer and licencee. This
will enable discharge of the requirement of acknowledgement enjoined under the
aforesaid Regulation (5) and Regulation 10 of the respective Regulations.
(l) For the purposes of risk management, if there is any inordinate delay in
the due arrival of goods, the bond officer may be alerted by the customs station
or vice versa.
(m) Where any procedure requires that goods removed from a
warehouse shall move under physical escort by customs (e.g. as prescribed by
circular 32/2016 regarding Duty Free Shops), the use of RFID OTL shall not
apply.
5. The Principal Commissioner of Customs /Commissioner of Customs
is duly empowered to permit movement of goods without affixation of RFID OTLs,
where the nature of goods or their manner of transport so warrant (e.g. Liquid
Bulk Cargo transported through Pipe Lines and Over Dimensional Cargo).
6.
The above procedure shall come into force with effect from 15th March, 2020.
7. Clarifications, if any, may be sought from the Board.
8. Hindi
version follows.
F.No. 484/3/ 2015-LC (Vol II)
(Dr. Swati Bhanwala)
OSD (Land Customs))
|