DGFT allots IEC on 7 th January 2992
BUT that is after 977 years! The CAG Audit in a recent report observed,
Only one Importer Exporter Code (IEC) is allowed against a single Permanent Account Number (PAN) issued by Department of Income Tax (Paragraph 2.9 of HBP). The IEC data indicates the genuineness of an exporter/ importer and determines his/her unique identity in the Trade and helps the regulatory agencies in tracking the holder in cases of default. This IEC data is transmitted online to Customs by the DGFT.
Scrutiny of the IEC master records revealed that the IEC allotment dates were prima facie incorrect in 42 cases, since the date of IEC allotment was found to be after the current date, viz. between 18 March 2088 and 07 January 2992.
All 42 such IECs are active in the database.
Thus, the DGFT EDI System lacks output control checks even for important IEC data such as the issue date.
CAG was auditing DGFT's EDI System.
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) started web based application processing in the late nineties for a few export promotion schemes. All 36 RLA offices are computerized and connected to the DGFT Central server through National Informatics Centre's NICNET service. The DGFT's EDI system is part of e - Trade, an Integrated Mission Mode Project (MMP) under National e - Governance Plan (NEGP). This seeks to simplify procedures, introduce electronic delivery of services by regulatory and facilitating organisations, provide 24x7 access to users, increase transparency in procedures, reduce transaction cost and time, and introduce international standards and practices in the area of clearance of export/ import of cargo. Other organisations involved in this integrated EDI implementation are Airports, Airlines, Export Promotion Councils, Banks and RBI, Customs, Container Corporation of India (CONCOR), DGFT, Export Promotion Organisations, Director General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS) and Inland Container Depots (ICDs)/ Container Freight Stations (CFS), Indian Railways and Port Trusts.
Audit found:
1. DGFT has no Data Backup Policy; Disaster Recovery Plan (DCP) documents, Data Storage Policy, Password Policy, Access Control Policy, Hardware change policy etc.
2. The DGFT EDI System does not provide for a recorded trail of all transactions and no internal audit of the EDI System was carried out.
3. Storage of passwords as text data in the DGFT database tables, entails the risk of compromising the login access details of DGFT users and importers/exporters, eBRC loading banks, etc.
4. The same DEPB serial number was entered twice in the directory with different rates, effective from the same date. There were 6 such cases noticed, apart from 8 duplicate entries for the same product.
5. Exchange rates notified by CBEC are not updated in the DGFT System.
6. Multiple IECs had been issued against single PAN. Audit located 9,175 such irregularly issued IECs in the DGFT database.
7. Imports against cancelled IECs due to delay in intimation to Customs.