Appointment of ports – Muldwarka. What about Vizag?
Muldwarka in Gujarat is now a port for unloading of coal, coke and furnace oil and export of any goods. Now this is sought to be made a port for “Unloading of imported coal, petroleum coke, furnace oil and gypsum and loading of clinker and cement for export”. DDT 73 had pointed out that Vizag and Kakinada are still not recognised ports as far as Customs are concerned.
An extract from DDT 73:-
So the two very important ports in Andhra Pradesh, Visakhapatnam and Kakinada are not really full-fledged ports. Kakinada is only for loading of export goods and unloading of only Petroleum products. And the largest operating port in India, Visakhapatnam, as per this notification is only for export. That is ‘no import’ from either port, except of course Petroleum products in Kakinada. The notification specifies several ports like Kandla, Mangalore, Cochin, Nhava Seva, Paradeep, Madras. And all these ports are for the purposes of “Unloading of imported goods and loading of export goods or any class of such goods.” Why then the difference for Visakhapatnam and Kakinada? Beats me! Of course there is another Notification which is not yet rescinded - Notification No. 77 – cus dated 19.5.1973, which also appoints Visakhapatnam and Kakinada as ports but only for the shipment and loading of goods.
So, as per the law, imported goods cannot be unloaded at Visakhapatnam and imported goods other than Petroleum products cannot be unloaded at Kakinada. But I have personal knowledge that imported goods are being unloaded at both these ports for any number of years.
There are a lot of illegal imports going on in Vizag and Kakinada as they are not really recognised ports and this is going on for ages!
NOTIFICATION NO. , Dated : April 20, 2005