CBIC launches its flagship programme 'Turant Customs' at Bengaluru & Chennai

Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) on Monday launched its flagship programme 'Turant Customs', at Bengaluru and Chennai. This is a giant leap forward to leverage technology for faster Customs clearance of imported goods.

Under the programme, the importers will now get their goods cleared from Customs after a faceless assessment is done remotely by the Customs officers located outside the port of import.

Now, the goods imported at Chennai may be assessed by the Customs officers located at Bengaluru and vice versa, as assigned by the Customs' automated system.

Turant Customs is a mega reform for the ease of doing business. It is a continuation of the reform journey that CBIC embarked on a few years back, resulting in India's ranking in the World Banks' Trading Across Border category of the Doing Business Report improving rapidly from a position at 146 in 2017 to 68 in 2019.

The start of Turant Customs at Bengaluru and Chennai will be the first phase of the All India roll out which would get completed by December 31, 2020. The first phase will cover imports of Mechanical, Electrical and Electronics machinery at the ports, airports and ICDs of Bengaluru and Chennai.

CBIC said that Turant Customs will benefit the importers by eliminating routine interface with the Customs officers and providing uniformity in assessment across the country. It will also reduce transaction costs and eliminate the practice of port shopping for favourable assessments.

CBIC has promised faceless, contactless and paperless customs clearance experience for trades under the umbrella of Turant Customs. While the assessment of Customs duty would be faceless, i.e., it would be done anonymously and remotely, critical steps in the process have been made contactless and paperless, CBIC said in a statement.

Besides, the indirect tax board has said that these steps include self-registration of goods on the system by importers, automated clearances of bills of entry, digitization of bill of entry, paperless processing by uploading documents on the electronic e-Sanchit platform, etc. Also, all communications between importers and Customs officers would be done electronically through the ICEGATE portal.

The launch of Turant Customs marks the culmination of a long pilot phase started in August 2019 at Chennai and later extended to Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Visakhapatnam Customs Zones for select commodities.