No Customs Commissionerate for Cochin Airport

By Vijay Kumar

A question asked in the Lok Sabha:

Will the Minister of FINANCE be pleased to state:

(a) whether the Government has taken note of the acute shortage of Customs personnel due to increase in passengers as well as cargo movement in Cochin International Airport;

(b) if so, the action taken/proposed to be taken by the Government to meet this issue;

(c) whether the Government is ready to institute a Commissionerate of Customs exclusively for CIAL to make a quicker and faster passenger clearance and cargo management and if so, the details thereof; and

(d) if not, the reasons therefor?

The Minister replied on Friday:

a) There is no acute shortage of Customs Personnel in Cochin International Airport. Adequate staff is posted for handling passenger clearance as well as cargo movement smoothly.

b) Taking into account an increase of about 7.63% in the number of passengers handled at Cochin International Airport in 2015-16 as compared to 2014-15, the staff posted to the Airport has been increased about 10.2%.

c) There is already a Commissionerate of Customs at Cochin which has jurisdiction over Cochin International Airport (CIAL) as well as International Seaport. There is no proposal to create an exclusive Commissionerate of Customs for CIAL.

d) Reorganization of the field formations under CBEC has recently taken place. During formulation of the said reorganization, no justification in terms of workload and functional requirements was found to create a Commissionerate of Customs exclusively for CIAL.

Our Laws are changed on the assumption that there is no intelligent life outside North Block. The arrogance of power is such that amendments are made without considering public suggestions or criticisms which are presumed to represent ranting of vested interests. We have now reached the danger point when the laws are made almost by bureaucracy and parliament has only a formal role to play in law making.