Online Collection of Light Dues
THE beautiful lighthouses on the seacoast, helping the ships to navigate the rough seas, are tourist attractions. Each lighthouse speaks a powerful clear language and has a specific message conveyed either by the colours of the lighthouse or the number of times the light beam rotates. There is no scope for confusing notifications, long winding interpretations or never ending litigation. This is not a free service. The Government of India collects a fee called the light-dues from ships touching India. While the Lighthouses are maintained by the Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships, in remote and difficult to access places, the collection of this fee is entrusted to the Customs Department as no ship arrives at or departs from any port in India without Customs clearance. And there is a Law - an Act which is 88 years old.
In terms of Section 9 of the Lighthouse Act, 1927, for the purpose of providing or maintaining or for providing and maintaining lighthouses for the benefit of ships voyaging to or from India or between ports in India, the Central Government shall, subject to the provisions of the Act cause light-dues to be levied and collected in respect of every ship arriving at or departing from any port in India, at the rates prescribed under Section 10 (1) by the Central Government, by notification in the Official Gazette, and shall be paid by the owner or master of the ship on its arrival at and on its departure from, any port in India under Section 10(2). If light-dues have been paid in accordance with the provisions of the Act in respect of any ship, no further dues shall become payable in respect of that ship for a period of thirty days from the date on which the dues so paid became payable.
In terms of Section 13 of the Lighthouse Act, 1927, the Proper Officer shall recover light-dues expenses and costs. Proper Officer has been defined I in Section 2(hh) as the officer of Customs who is assigned those functions by the Central Board of Excise and Customs and includes any person appointed by the Central Government to discharge the functions of a proper officer under the Act.
Now the collection of light-dues has been made online. Online payment of light dues can be made from Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships (DGLL) website www.dgll.nic.in or from the website of Syndicate Bank www.syndicatebank.in The proper officers from the Customs will be issued user ID and password for verification of the receipt/acknowledgement produced by the shipper/agent for online payment of light dues from website of Syndicate Bank.
CBEC has requested the Chief Commissioners of Customs / Customs (Preventive) / Customs and Central Excise to sensitize staff working under their jurisdiction and to issue suitable Public Notice for the information of the Trade and Shipping Agents/Liners about implementation of new system.
For a related problem on Light-dues, please see Light dues on deck cargo - current problem 'contained' but will Customs recover for past losses?
Is there any Service Tax on this?
CBEC Letter F.No. 450/04/2015-Cus-IV., Dated: May 22, 2015