Hyderabad Grievances
WE continue from yesterday on the issues raised in the Hyderabad Open House held on 19.10.2010. We are only giving the gist of the answers given by the Chief Commissioner. The replies given by the Chief Commissioner were long and like an impromptu speech, rather difficult to cover. We are bringing these only to highlight the problems which may be common across the country.
Returns - e filing and manual? After introduction e-filing by almost all companies, Range Superintendents are asking the 'hard copy' to be filed as well. Please clarify whether it is necessary.
There is no requirement of filing hard copies after electronic filing of the returns. This must have happened because some superintendent might not be comfortable with electronic filing. Specific cases may be brought to the notice of the senior officers. “If it is due to ignorance of the officer, we will educate him; if there are any mala fide intentions, we will take action”
Nobody to acknowledge: when assessee goes to file his return or other papers, the Superintendent is not available. In his absence, nobody is willing to take the papers and give acknowledgement. Please have some system in place so that somebody can give acknowledgement or clarify whether papers can be sent by Registered post.
Complaint/ suggestion boxes may be put in all Ranges.
Centralised Inward Section may be opened at Head Quarters, so that people can give papers there. Secondly, sometime on specific issues addressed to the department no response is received from Divisional AC or Commissionerate. As per citizen charter every letter has to be given reply.
Will be sorted out, but it is not possible to accept letters meant for the Divisional ACs at the Commissionerate HQrs .
Certificates by Central Excise Officers: Sometimes some authorities like Railway/Electricity Boards are asking some certificate from Range Superintendent to certify that duty has been paid on certain goods. Department, sometimes, says that there is no Rule to give such certificate.
There will not be a rule for everything. As Government servants, the Central Excise officers are bound to serve the citizens and if an officer is satisfied that duty has been paid, he should happily give such a certificate.
Customs Weights: XYZ are the regular importer of Industrial bearings from Russia. ALL THE bearings MEET THE INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS and meant for use by big industrial uses like BHEL / NCL etc. As per the valuation guidelines they have accepted to get the bearings valued at 4.7 USD/ Invoice value whichever is higher. They are also submitting the declaration of the weight of the bearing and also supplied catalogue containing the weight of the bearing. They are also indicating the net weight and gross weight of the bearing and the weights are in agreement with the container weight etc. But the Customs authorities at Hyderabad are insisting to get each bearing to be weighed and when the scales are not there they are asking us to get the weighing scales ourselves. This process is taking minimum 6 days to get the consignment cleared. As our bearings are of weight ranging from 50 kgs to 450 kgs each- sometimes we are engaging labour to lift the bearings. We request the authorities to clear the goods based on our declaration of weight with reference to the marking on the bearing- if required can test check instead of insisting the first check which takes two days.
As such weighing is not required for each bearing and when I want to weigh it I must provide the weighing machine. This will be sorted out.
Dealer without godown: Some of Paper merchants association members want to get EXCISE REGISTRATION done as the end consumers are eligible and insisting for Excise Modvat /Gate Pass. Their members are mainly doing sale in transit and do not have/need a godown . The Excise Officials are insisting for a Godown for Excise Registration and members are finding it difficult to get Excise Registration done as they do not need a godown and the godown is an extra cost and overhead. They request the CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF CENTRAL EXCISE, CUSTOMS to give instructions/ circular to officials advising them to register the traders without insisting for Godown .
This is being allowed only for certain liquids like liquid ammonia.
Abnormal delay in receiving the shipping bills online to the DGFT WEBSITE. It is taking so many months to get the shipping bills online with the DGFT site from the customs website for the goods exported from ICD / CFS . Please find the list of shipping bills which are not yet received through online in the ANNEXURE 1, without which we are unable to claim our export incentives such as DEPB etc.
Long pending regular / supplementary duty drawback claims. Please note that the duty drawback claims are not being settled in time, rather it is pending years together in spite of repeated reminders/ follow up at ICD / CFS . Please find the list of pending duty draw back claims as per the ANNEXURE 2.
Most of the cases are already cleared and the rest will be cleared soon.
Unusable Credit? XYZ are manufacturers of OTS cans [Open Top Sanitary cans] used as packing material in Food Processing Industry for packing processed fruits, vegetables and food products. We procure raw-material i.e. Tinplate sheets from M/s TATA Steel Limited, Jamshedpur on payment of 10.3% CENVAT applicable on Tinplate under chapter 7210:12:90.
The Central Excise authorities issue CT-2 from, under notification 43/2001 CENT) Dt. 26-6-2001 for procurement of excisable goods without payment of duty to manufacturer cum exporter to procure the duty free goods from DTA manufacturer. All our customers, who are food processors cum exporters avail of this facility from their concerned Excise authorities and issue a CT2 form in our favour for procurement of OTS cans without payment of duty.
The DTA manufacturer [here he becomes a deemed exporter] has no provision in the Central Excise Rules to get compensation of duty paid on raw materials used for deemed export goods. The duty paid by us on raw-materials gets piled up as unutilized cenvat every year. Our unutilized Cenvat balance as on date is Rs. 125 Lacs and is adding up by every passing month. There is no provision (a) either for refund or (2) corresponding procurement of raw material without duty payment just as in our customers' case.
XYZ request for introduction of provision (a) either for refund of duty paid on raw-materials used for deemed export or (b) provision for procurement of duty free raw-materials for purpose of manufacture of goods for deemed export.
Please make a representation to the Board.