CBEC prescribes 24-hr monitoring of cargo at docks

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New Delhi, January 19:: Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has in a circular asked commissioners of customs to prescribe round the clock working for supervision of movement of cargo at the gates of the docks.

The move will remove the provision for “overtime fee” paid by the importers/exporters for services of the customs officers beyond the normal working hours or at a place beyond the customs area.

The circular issued on January 17 says: “After 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year working is introduced for customs at the gates, no overtime fee should be levied for the supervision of movement of cargo at the gates.” The decision to remove the “overtime fee” provision has been taken due to the pressure from importers/exporters.

The circular says that Customs (fees for rendering services by customs officers) Regulations, 1998 inter alia, provide for levy of the overtime fee.

It has been represented by the trading community that the collection of overtime fee from each importer/exporter for a minimum of three hours for same set of officers supervising the gates of the docks is not justified, as it increases the transaction cost for imports/exports, besides creating paperwork, the circular says, adding that the matter has been examined by the government.

But, can customs commissioners change working hours? The definition of the term “working hours” in the regulation, says the circular, reads: “Working hours means the duty hours prescribed by the commissioner of customs in his jurisdiction for normal customs work and where different working hours have been prescribed by the said commissioner for different items of customs work or for different places within the jurisdiction.”

It then points out that it is evident that the regulations allow the commissioners to prescribe different working hours for different items of customs work for the purpose of levy of overtime fee.