Customs Declaration by Domestic Passengers

By Vijay Kumar

YESTERDAY, DDT-2181 reported about the baggage declaration required to be filed by passengers landing in India. But are domestic passengers required to file a declaration? The other day I was travelling in a domestic sector of an international flight of Air India.

As I was checking in, I was given a Form, ‘Declaration of domestic passengers travelling by Air India Flight'.

I was asked to fill up the form and give it just before boarding the aircraft. I was supposed to declare that I do not possess the following articles or that I have valid customs clearance documents for them. The form was to be signed before a Customs Officer and to be countersigned by the Customs escorting officer.

1. Watches, watch movements or parts thereof - of foreign origin

2. Transistors and diodes (when did you last see them?)

3. Photographic cameras including Video Cameras

4. TV sets

5. VCRs, VCPs and Video Tapes (who has them these days?]

(All the goods listed at S.Nos. 1 to 5 above are also available in a single instrument called a cell phone - a majority of the cell phone models available in the market these days have all these features in-built into a single instrument. Nowadays every person has a fancy of buying a cell phone with all these features and they also travel by air and more likely end up in international flights for reaching domestic destinations. So, how about declaring a cell phone and more so a cellphone with all the above technological features. What is the point?)

6. Zip fasteners

(Every passenger wearing clothes may invariably have a zip fastener sewn to the garment covering their upper half or lower half - so what is the Customs gaining out of this piece of declaration. Hope they don't ask for a physical examination - and what about those hand bags which have these "zips" in abundance?)

7. Any other electronic items

8. Gold bullion and gold jewellery

(Gold jewellery is fashionable. These days' men are wearing more jewellery than women. And can't I carry a laptop or a flash drive?)

9. Silver bullion and coins

10. Foreign currency

11. Indian currency beyond Rs. 5000/-

(Are we living in medieval times? With inflation touching double digits, a bag of onion is costing Rs. 5000/-. So, what are we trying to prove if we catch a person travelling with more than Rs. 5000/- that too to a domestic destination? Nowadays, banks are issuing international debit cards with far higher ceiling for cash withdrawal. What is the sanctity for this Rs. 5000/-?)

12. Any other dutiable/imported item

(All the goods tucked into a suitcase/ briefcase, worn by the passenger are dutiable goods. Will there be any dispute on that?)

I asked where the Customs officer before whom I was to sign this declaration was - the Air India official told me that he would come inside the aircraft - but that is supposed to be an escort officer. Anyway inside the aircraft, I did not find any Customs Officer.

With such out-dated declaration forms, what is the Customs or for that matter Air India trying to prove? Why should we waste time and paper in such ridiculous activities?

I wrote about a similar episode three years ago in DDT 1321, but the system continues. Air India seems to have had their cadre review long ago - they had an officer just to collect these forms.