As part of a revised communication strategy, the Board has reviewed the current system of issuing circulars containing instruction, procedures of clarifications. Consequent to this review, the following decisions have been taken for implementation -

All instruction/ clarifications would be issued by the board only through numbered circulars as hitherto. In case any clarification / instruction having relevance for all field formation is issued to a particular commissioner without being numbered, such cases should be referred back to the concerned section of the Board for issue of a numbered circular.

All instruction/ clarifications issued in the form of numbered circulars would be made public and circulated to the staff as well as the Trade. The Directorate of Publicity and Public Relations would make available copies of these circulars to national level Chambers of Commerce and Industry as also the Private Publications such as Excise Law Times, Excise & Customs Reporter, Shagun Publication etc.

Circular of the Board which are classified (Confident/ Secret/ Top Secret) will not be made available to the Trade.

In view of the decision of the Board to make all numbered Circulars public, the field formations must issue copies of the same circular to the Trade without changing the number or the language of the circular. This is intended to prevent divergent practices being followed in the field based on local deviations, which creep into the Trade Notices and Standing orders issued by the Commissioners.

The aforesaid instruction may be given effect to immediately.