Customs clearance is set to get easier for businesses from July 15 with the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) introducing several procedural changes to facilitate cross-border trade.
CBIC communicated the new measures aimed at speeding up assessment and clearance of shipments in a more anonymous way to the top brass of the customs department on Thursday. The idea is to further streamline the faceless assessment scheme rolled out last October and process shipments without direct interface with the merchant.
The faceless assessment units in the department are accordingly being revamped. The measures were outlined in a circular issued by CBIC. The key new steps include streamlining customs procedures, making decisionmaking time-bound at the level of individual officers and optimising output in terms of clearing bill of entries.