Imp.No. 29 -
Exp No. 29

PUBLIC NOTICE NO. 81/2002 Date : 10/7/2002

Sub.: Examination norms of export goods at port of export – Reg.
Attention of all Exporters, CHAs and all others concerned is invited to Board’s Circular No. 90/98 Cus IV dated 8th December, 1988, as amended, providing a Procedure for clearance of Export goods from factories on the basis of self-certification and scale of physical examination at port of export was prescribed. Since then, several references have been received from the trade and industry, seeking reduction in percentage examination of export consignments for faster clearance of cargo. The matter was considered by the Export Promotion Board (EPB), and EPB has recommended that in case of exports where the duty benefit is above Rs. 1 Lakh, 10% shipments should be checked on a random basis, and in cases, where the duty benefit is below Rs. 1 Lakh, only surprise checks could be restored to.

2. The proposals received in this regard have been carefully esamined by the Government and pursuant to this examination, it has been decided to revise the examination norms keeping in view the quantum of incentive, value of export goods, the country of destination etc. As such, the following decisions have been taken :

2.1 The scale of physical examination of various categories of exports at the port of export shall be as follows :

A. Factory, warehouse & other notified places stuffed Export Cargo :

Category of Export	Scale of Examination
Export goods stuffed and sealed in the presence of the Customs/ Celtral Excise officers at the factories of manufacture ICD/ CFS, notified warehouses and other places where the Commissioner has, by a special order, permitted examination of goods for export.	No examination except (a) where the seals are found tampered with or (b) there os specific intilligence in which case, permission of Deputy / Assistant Commissioner would be required before checking.

In the case of export goods which are stuffed anc sealed in the presence of Customs/ Central Excise officers at the factory of manufacture, ICD/ CFS, warehouses and other place where the Commissioner has, by a special order, permitted, it may be ensured that the containers are bottle sealed or lead sealed. In case of export through bonded trucks, the truck should be similarly bottle sealed or lead sealed. In case export by ordinary truck/ other means, all the packages are required to be lead sealed. In the case this is second shipment of the same exporter. The examination officer can then decide whether to subject the second consignment for examination or not. In case the buyer in both or more consignments happens to be the same person, subsequent consignments should be examined.

3. In case of manual shipping bills (other than free shipping bills) it is the duty of the Noting clerk to ensure that the exporters do not split up consignments so as to fall within the lower examination norms. Wherever on the same day, the same exporters attempts to export a consignment. (other than free shipping bills) involving export incentive of Rs. 1 Lakh or less (Drawback/ DEPB) or in other cases having the FOB value upto Rs. 5 Lakhs to the same country, the Noting Clerk would make a notation in Shipping Bill for alerting the examining officer that this is second shipment of the same exporter.

3.1 It is the duty of Examining Officer working in Export examination to detect such cases of split up consignment on day to day basis and subject them to examination.

4. It may also be noted that after the goods have been presented for registration to Customs and determination has been made whether or not to examine the goods, no amendments in the normal course are expected. Howeverm in case an exporter wishes to change any of the critical parameters resulting in change of value, Dbk, DEPB Credit, port etc. such consignment would be subjected to examination.

4.1 Notwithstanding anything contained above, any export consignmenr can be examined by the Customs (even upto 100% examination), if there is any specific intelligence in respect of the said consignment. Further, to test the compliance by trade, once in three months a higher percentage of consignments (say for example, all the first 50 consignments or a batch of consecutive 100 consignments presented for examinations selected for examination a minimum of two packages with a maximum of 5% of packages (subject to a maximum of 20 packages from a consignment) would be taken up for checking /examination.

5. Thus supersedes any Standing Order issued earlier on the basis of Boards Circular No. 90/98 relating to Self certification of export goods and containers.

6. Any difficulty experience by the trade in implementing the above, may be brought to the notice of this office for further necessary action of goods examined by Central Excise/ Custom Officers and sealed and stuffed under their supervision at a factory or in an approved warehouse, the consignments shall be accompanied by an examination report in the form annexed (Annexure).

B. Export under Free Shipping Bills :

Category of Exports	Scale of Examination
Export under free Shipping Bills, i.e. where there is no export incentive.	No examination except where there is a specific intelligence.

C. Export under Drawback/ DEPB Schemes :

S.No	Category of Export	Scale of Examination
		Export consignments Shipped to sensitive places viz. Dubai, Sharjah, Singapore, Hong –Kong and Colombo.	Others
(i)	Consignments where the amount of drawback / DEPB involved is Rs. 1 Lakh or less.	25%	2%
(ii)	Consignments where the amount of Drawback/ DEPB involved is more than Rs. 1 Lakh.	50%	10%

D. Export under EPCG/ DEEC Schemes :

S.No.	Category of Export	Scale of Examination
		Export consignments Shipped to sensitive places viz. Dubai, Sharjah, Singapore, Hong –Kong and Colombo.	Others
(i)	Consignments where the FOB value is Rs. 5 Lakh or less.	25%	2%
(ii)	Consignments where the FOB value is mpore than Rs. 5 Lakhs.	50%	10%

2. In all cases referred to above, in respect of consignments selected for examination, a minimum ot two packages with a maximum of 5% of packages (subject to a maximum of 20 packages from a consignment) shall be opened for examination. The package number to be opened for examination will be selected by the system.

3. It is to be ensured that exporters do not split up consignments so as to fall within the lower examination norms. Therefore, wherever on the same day the same exporter attempts to export a consignment (other than free shipping bills) involving export incentives of Rs. 1 Lakh or less (Drawback / DEPB) or in other cases having the FOB value upto Rs. 5 Lakhs to the same country, the system would alert the examining officer that

(Authority : Based on Board’s Circular No. 6/2002-Cus dated 23rd January, 2002 issued from F.No. 450/126/98 –Cus IV)

Sd/-
(RAMESH RAMACHANDRA)
COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS (E.P.)

Issued from F.No. S/16-DEPB-Misc-167/02

Date : 2002

Attested by

(U.H. JADHAV)
Asstt. Commissioner of Customs,
DEPB/ Export

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