Factory Stuffing of Export Containers - Vapi Commissioner complicates procedure
EXPORT is a national priority and it is the duty of every citizen to do everything possible to boost our exports. The Government and its employees are expected to support export and certainly not suppress any export initiative. Somehow, the Customs and Central Excise Department in India, especially at the field level consider it their sacred duty to cause as much trouble and costs to the exporters, as humanly possible, even though the Board desires several facilitatory measures. The Commissioners should at least be seen to be promoting exports and not impeding it.
Recently, the Vapi Commissioner of Central Excise issued a Facility Notice sending a chill down the spine of exporters. Commissioners are supposed to solve problems, not create them.
As per the new FACILITY,
++ The exporter to whom the NOC has been given and who has obtained the factory stuffing permission from the concerned Customs Station, as per the existing instructions, shall make an application to the Assistant/Deputy Commissioner in-charge of Technical Section in the format prescribed [as in Annexure-II], at least 48 hours in advance, for allocation of officers for the work of supervision of examination, stuffing and sealing of the export containers.
++ The applications shall be disposed by following the standards of First-in First-out [FIFO].
++ The Technical Section will depute the officers to attend / supervise the work of examination, stuffing and sealing of export containers. If the officers are not available, the exporter would be immediately informed about the inability to provide the requisite officers. The name of the officer nominated for the work of supervision along with his contact details will be informed to the exporter who would get in touch with the officer for getting the work done.
++ Work of supervision of export container, shall be attended only on payment of Merchant Overtime Fee [MOT].
++ The MOT fees are to be paid in advance by the exporter as per their plan for stuffing. On confirmation of the availability of the officers by the Technical Section, the exporter shall pay the MOT in advance and submit a copy of challan to the Technical Section.
This work of supervision of stuffing used to be done by the Range Officers; Now it is shifted to the Commissionerate HQ. The Commissioner's Facility Notice issued on the subject declares that the work of supervision of export container is a sensitive work. You know what is sensitive in the Department? Posts are graded as SENSITIVE and NON SENSITIVE. Sensitive means posts where you can make money. Normally technical sections of the Commissionerates are non-sensitive. Now the Vapi Commissionerate wants to make that also sensitive. The Commissioner has also asked for willingness from officers to do this work after office hours and during holidays. The exporters are required to pay MOT in advance. How will the exporter know in advance the number of hours that the Central Excise officers will take to do the supervision work? Doesn't the Commissioner believe his assessees for small sums of money? And there is no guarantee that officers will be sent for supervision – if the officers are not available, the Commissioner will inform the exporter that no officer will be available and the exporter has to depend on the mercy of God and of course the Commissioner.
It is learnt that some other Commissioners have also issued similar FACILITY notices.
A concerned Netizen tells us, “This facility note has created havoc among Exporter. Many representation-request were made to the authority but not give any result and hence the export is held up”.
How many ways can the department innovate in troubling the trade?