The government of India has decided to do away with the traditional mechanical sealing of cargoes carried out under the supervision of the Central Excise officers. Inthe last few years, India has seen a steady rise in international trade and shipping. The current method being slow and mired with manual inefficiency, it goes against the ‘ease of doing business’ policy of the government. Hence, the government has decided to implement the self-sealing procedure to export cargoes which do not require the presence of a customs officer. The self-sealing method incorporateRFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags in shipping containers which can help identify and monitor individual containers without physically having to inspect them.Since this method uses an electronic device (RFID tag), the sealing is also known as electronic sealing or E-sealing.
RFID systems are comprised of three main components:
1. RFID tag or transponder - the data carrier in the RFID system.
2. RFID reader or transceiver - able to read data from tags and possibly write
data to them.
3. Data Processing subsystem or back-end database - processes the data
received from the transceiver in some useful manner.
Let us now take a look at the self-sealing procedure that the government will be
implementing from October 1 st 2017.st 2017.
1. The exporter must notify the customs department about the location where the container stuffing is to be carried out.
2. The exporter should be registered under the GST and should be filing GSTRI and GSTR2.
3. Any exporter desirous of availing this procedure shall inform the jurisdictional Custom Officer of the rank of Superintendent or Appraiser of Customs, at
least 15 days before the first planned movement of a consignment from his/her factory/ premises, about the intention to follow self- sealing procedure toself- sealing procedure toself- sealing procedure toself- sealing procedure toself- sealing procedure toself- sealing procedure toself- sealing procedure toself- sealing procedure to export goods from the factory premises or warehouse.
4. Self-Sealing permission once given by a Principal Commissioner/Commissioner of Customs shall be valid for export at all the customs stations.
5. The exporter shall seal the container with the tamper proof electronic-seal of standard specification. The electronic seal should have a unique number which should be declared in the Shipping Bill. Before sealing the container, the exporter shall feed the data such as the name of the exporter, IEC code, GSTIN number, description of the goods, tax invoice number, the name of the authorized signatory (for affixing the e-seal) and Shipping Bill number in an horized signatory (for affixing the e-seal) and Shipping Bill number in an electronic seal. Thereafter, container shall be sealed with the same electronic before leaving the premises.
6. The exporter intending to clear export goods on self-clearance (without employing a Customs Broker) shall file the Shipping Bill under digital signature.
7. All consignments in self-sealed containers shall be subject to risk-based criteria and intelligence, if any, for examination / inspection at the port of exportexamination / inspection at the port of export.