NEW DELHI: In a first ever user-friendly facility of its kind for importers, the Central Government on Tuesday released a comprehensive customs tariff and non-tariff database in the form of a CD and has plans to go online within a week for the benefit of the trade and industry, researchers and the general public.
Henceforth, at the click of a mouse, importers will be able to ascertain the prevailing customs and other duties on a product, the end-use or country-specific exemptions available, the related import policies on various products as also the duty calculator and other facilities.
Speaking after the launch of ‘Customs tariff database online’ for India, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Virmani said the database would help in analysing the issues related to customs tariff quickly and in a user-friendly way. “This is the first ever online database for customs tariff which will be accessible by the Ministry of Finance as well as the general public,” he said.
The database, Mr. Virmani said, would help the government carry out customs duty reforms and also be handy for businessmen, researchers and other interested groups to get reliable data online without referring to bulky e-books. In particular, the database would be useful for research and analysis and decision making in customs tariff reforms as it provides an industry-wise listing of major issues and their possible solutions.
Besides being useful for the government in policy-making, the database would be linked with export and import figures, government policies on the products and made inter-linkable with other databases such as that of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
According to ABS (Academy of Business Studies) Director Arun Goyal, the database, prepared by the academy for the Finance Ministry on a public private partnership (PPP) basis, would be updated daily and be available on a payment basis on the net.
Customs tariff of India is a complex subject with 11,000 tariff codes, 328 exemption notifications along with 591 entries in the Jumbo notification giving effective duties against specific tariff codes under exemption. Apart from this, there are about 150 amending notifications issued during the course of the year. The database, among other information, consists of all customs duties, countervailing duties, education cess, anti-dumping and safeguards actions, import policy restrictions, non-tariff barriers and various trade pacts with other countries.
Source : The Hindu