Should Customs Preventive Manual, 1987 still continue?
THOUGH the Board admits that over the years many changes have taken place in the sphere of Customs administration in the background of changed economic scenario and increasing volume of trade, does the Board still think the 1987 manual is relevant, appropriate and valid?
13 years after the 1987 manual was released, the CBEC found that the manual needed a thorough revision and in the year 2000, prepared a Draft Customs Preventive Manual, which is languishing in glorious dust in some unknown rack in the North Block.
Nine years later in 2009, the DRI prepared another Draft Manual and released it for feedback latest by 31.01.2010. More than six years have lapsed and dust continues to gather with the new manual nowhere in sight. Please see .
So, they are still depending on a thirty-year old manual, because they failed to release the revised manuals in 2000 and 2009 in spite of preparing the drafts. How much time and money they must have wasted in preparing two bulky draft manuals and then consigning them to the unread pages of history?
Even if GST comes, Customs will still continue. So the CBEC should seriously consider issuing another Draft Preventive Manual.
CBEC Instruction No. 25/2016-Customs., Dated: August 23 2016