What is the process undertaken by Indian Customs on arrival of Vessels, Aircrafts or any other vehicles by Air, Water or surface land? The customs manual of India 2023 explains the complete procedures undertaken on this matter.
Process by Indian customs on arrival of Vessels, Aircraft or any vehicle by all modes of transport and carriage of goods.
The details about the procedures monitored by Indian customs includes the Conveyance to call only at notified Customs port/airport, Power to board conveyance, to question and to demand documents, Delivery of Arrival Manifest or Import Manifest or Import Report, Person filing the manifest to be registered, Amendments of IGM, Penal liability, Exclusion from IGMs of items originally manifested, Enclosures to Import General Manifest, Procedure for filing IGM at EDI Custom Houses, Filing of Stores List, Entry Inwards and unloading and loading of goods and Other liabilities of carriers.
Arrival of Conveyances and Related Procedures
1. Introduction:
1.1 Customs control over conveyances that bring imported goods and take out export goods is
necessitated by the fact that all imports and exports are required to be subjected to appropriate
Customs clearance procedures. Hence, legal provisions are in place to monitor such conveyances
and the goods carried thereon. Furthermore, in terms of Section 2 of the Customs Act, 1962
conveyance includes a vessel, an aircraft and a vehicle thereby covering all possible modes of
transport and carriage of goods.
2. Conveyance to call only at notified Customs port/airport:
2.1 Section 7 of the Customs Act, 1962 envisages that unloading of imported goods and loading of
export goods shall be allowed only at places notified by the Board as Customs ports or Customs
airports or Land Customs Stations or, Inland Container Depots or Air Freight Stations. At each
such customs station, the Principal Commissioner of Customs or the Commissioner of Customs
is empowered to approve proper places for the unloading and loading of goods, and specify the
limits of such Customs area. It is further provided vide Section 29 ibid that the person in charge of
a vessel or an aircraft shall not call or land at any place other than a customs port or an airport
without approval of the Board, except, subject to certain conditions when compelled by accident,
stress of weather or other unavoidable cause to call or land.
3. Power to board conveyance, to question and to demand documents:
3.1 Section 37 of the Customs Act, 1962 empowers the proper officer of Customs to board any
conveyance carrying imported goods or export goods and Section 38 ibid provides that the proper
officer may require the person in charge of any conveyance to answer any question or produce
any documents. The person in charge of the conveyance is bound to comply with these
requirements.
4. Delivery of Arrival Manifest or Import Manifest or Import Report:
4.1 In accordance with section 30 of the Customs Act, 1962 the person in charge (Master /Agent) of
a vessel or an aircraft or a vehicle carrying imported goods or export goods has to deliver an import
manifest (an import report in case of a vehicle), in electronic form, prior to arrival in the case of a
vessel and an aircraft or within 12 hours of arrival in case of a vehicle in the prescribed form. The
person-in-charge or any other person who causes delay and the proper officer is satisfied that
there was no sufficient cause for such delay, shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding Rs.50,000/-
. A person delivering the import manifest or import report has to declare the truthfulness of its
contents.
5. Person filing the manifest to be registered:
5.1 In terms of the Import Manifest (Vessels) Regulations, 1971 and Import Manifest (Aircrafts)
Regulations, 1976any person, who delivers the import manifest for a vessel or an aircraft to the
proper officer under Section 30 of the Customs Act, 1962 is required to be registered with
Customs.
5.2 In order to ensure that the Import Manifest for vessel or aircraft is filed prior to arrival of vessel or
aircraft, the following procedure has been formulated:
i. The person responsible for filing of the Import Manifest, both at Master as well as Houselevel details, shall register with the Customs in advance. The application for registration shall
be made to the jurisdictional Commissioner in Form Vor Form VI, as the case may be, of
the said Regulations. The application should be accompanied by an undertaking to file the
manifest details as required.
ii. Airlines/Steamer Agents/Shipping Lines/Consol Agents (including ‘any other person’ notified
as per Section 30 of the Customs Act, 1962) are assigned business category codes as AL,
SA, SL and CN, respectively. For the purpose of registration of Airlines/Steamer
Agents/Shipping Lines, the existing Airline Code or Steamer Agents Code or Shipping Lines
Code already allotted to them shall be used for filing manifest and same shall be their
registration number. As regards consol agents, their registration number shall be of 12 digits
(10-digit Income Tax PAN, followed by business category code, i.e. CN). A sample of
registration number of a consol agent will look like AAACK8719PCN.
iii. Airlines/Steamer Agents/Shipping Lines/Consol Agents are required to submit the
Information as per the prescribed Annexure “A” which is a system complaint from that
contains information prescribed as per the Form V and Form VI of the Import Manifest
(Aircraft) Regulations, 1976 and Import Manifest (Vessels) Regulations, 1971 respectively,
to the respective Commissioners, where they are operating, for capturing the details in the
EDI System.
iv. In the case of chartered flights where the consol agents themselves are entrusted with the
responsibility of filing both Master as well as House-level details, the consol agents will have
to be registered with the Customs as airline agent and will be allotted an ad-hoc/temporary
code (accepted by system), as per existing format for each such flight.
v. Access to the system for filing IGM details will be allowed after the receipt of the applications,
in the Annexure “A” along with a self-declaration of the correctness of the particulars, by the
jurisdictional Commissioner. The verification of details will be done subsequently and for this
the applicant will mention in Annexure “A” the name of the Commissionerate i.e.
“Port/Airport/ICD of verification” where their details would be verified. In the case of any
discrepancies observed at the time of verification the registered party would be debarred
from filing IGM. The concerned Commissionerate after the verification will send the
registration number along with the name of the registered entity to webmaster of
www.cbic.gov.in who in turn will post the details on the website for the information of all
stakeholders. Verification of the declaration will be done only by the “Port/Airport/ICD of
verification” mentioned in Annexure “A” and no other port etc. will be required to do further
verification. In case of doubt, they may refer the same to the Commissioner of
“Port/Airport/ICD of verification”.
vi. The responsibility for filing the import manifest with Master level details shall rest with the
person in-charge of the vessel or aircraft or their agent while the House e level details shall
be filed by “any other person” specified under Section 30 of the Customs Act, 1962. In case
the “any other person” is not registered under the said Regulations, then, the responsibility
to file House level details shall also rest with the person in-charge of the vessel or aircraft
or their agent. The shipping lines or airlines should, therefore, ensure that the person
authorized to issue delivery orders in respect of goods carried by them, are duly registered
with Customs. Failure to file the IGM in advance will invite action as per Section 30(1) of the
Customs Act, 1962.
vii. At Customs stations having operational Indian Customs EDI (ICES) system, the IGM shall
be filed through electronic mode. At other i.e. non-EDI Customs stations, the hard copies of
IGM shall be required to be filed manually, in advance as per the Section 30 of Customs
Act, 1962. Where ICES is operational but some Bills of Entry are filed manually, hard copy
of IGM will have to be filed but late filing of hard copy will not be considered as non-filing or
late filing of IGM, provided that the soft copy is filed in time.
viii. In the case of vessels, where the voyage from the last port of call exceeds 4 days, the IGM
shall be filed at least 48 hours before the entry inward of such vessels. In the case of short
haul voyages, i.e., where the voyage from the last port of call is less than 4 days, the IGM
is required to be filed 10 hours before entry inward of the vessel.
ix. In the case of long haul flights i.e. flight time of at least 3 hours from the last airport, the IGM
shall be filed within 2 hours before the arrival of the aircraft and for short haul flights, before
the arrival of the aircraft. Further, flights in domestic sector, which carry transshipped
imported goods from one Indian airport to another airport in India, would be treated as short
haul flight for the purpose of filing IGM under Section 30 of the Customs Act, 1962.
x. The vessel's stores list and list of private property in possession of the Master, officer and
crew etc. should contain the quantity of store on board at the time of departure from the last
port of call and estimated quantity likely to be consumed till the grant of entry inward.
xi. At the time of registration, the requirement stipulated in the para 5 of Form V and Form VI
of the Import Manifest (Aircraft) Regulations, 1976 and Import Manifest (Vessel)
Regulations, 1971 respectively.
5.3 Sea Cargo Manifest and Transhipment Regulations, 2018 (SCMTR): CBIC vide notification
No.38/2018-Customs (N.T.) dated 11.05.2018 has notified ‘Sea Cargo Manifest and Transhipment
Regulations, 2018’. The SCMTR seek to bring about transparency, predictability of movement,
advance collection of information for expeditious clearance and supersedes the earlier regulations
viz. Import Manifest (Vessels) Regulations, 1971, Export Manifest (Vessels) Regulation, 1976 and
Transportation of Goods (Through Foreign Territory) Regulations, 1965. The new regulations
stipulate changes in timelines and requirements for advance notice by authorized carriers for
goods arriving in or being exported out of India through gateway seaports and further movement
between Customs stations. They stipulate the obligations, roles and responsibilities for the various
stakeholders involved in movement of imported/export goods. The implementation plan and
timelines for mandatory compliance pertaining to stakeholders such as Authorised Sea Carriers
(ASC)/ Authorised Sea Agents (ASA), ANC (Other Notified Carriers- like Freight forwarders,
NVOCCs etc) and ATP (Authorized Transhippers), and the documents to be filed by them have
been laid down in annexure to Circular No.43/2020-Customs dated 30th September, 2020. The
Declarations under SCMTR are to be provided in the new message format. The DG Systems has
developed the new formats for submission by different stakeholders. Since there is a change in
the manner of reporting, the regulation has provided the transitional provisions for submission
under old and new formats simultaneously, so as to cause less disruption to the trade and provide
time for adoption of new processes. Currently the transitional provisions have been extended till
31.12.2022 vide notification No.56/2022-Customs (N.T.) dated 30.06.2022.
[Refer Circulars No.110/2003-Customs, dated 22-12-2003, No. 15/2004-Customs, dated
16-2-2004 and No. 30/2004-Customs, dated 16-4-2004, No.43/2020-Customs dated
30-09-2020, No.17/2021-Customs dated 23.07.2021]
6. Amendments of IGM:
6.1 Section 30(3) of the Customs Act, 1962 read with Levy of Fee (Customs Documents) Regulations,
1970) allows the proper officer to permit an IGM to be amended or supplemented, on payment of
prescribed fees, if he is satisfied that there is no fraudulent intention. Further, Board has placed
all amendments in two broad categories - Major and Minor:
(a) Major Amendments:
(i) Addition of extra entries (Line numbers in the IGM).
(ii) Amendment in the quantity of goods already declared.
(iii) Changing the date of the Bill of Lading mentioned in the IGM.
(iv) Changing the Importer's/consignee name.
(v) Commodity description.
(vi) Conversion of general description of goods from cargo to un-accompanied baggage
and vice-versa.
(b) Minor Amendments:
(i) Changing the Importers address only.
(ii) Correcting any spelling mistakes.
(iii) Conversion from one unit of measurement to another.
(iv) Change in the container number (only alphabetic prefix and last 10th test
numerical).
(v) Change/addition of marks and numbers.
(vi) Conversion from local to TP/SMTP and vice-versa.
(vii) Port of Loading.
(viii) Size of containers (provided there is no change in weight of consignment).
(ix) Port of discharge;
(x) Type of packages.
(xi) Number of packages (provided there is no change in the weight).
(xii) Seal number.
6.2 The need for adjudication will arise only in cases where there are major amendments involving
fraudulent intention or substantial revenue implication. Further it is possible that in certain special
situations such as mother/daughter vessel operation for lighter age on account of shortage of draft,
congestion of port, natural calamity, the final quantity of goods covered by the IGM would be
known only after completion of such lighter age operation, requiring amendment in quantity
originally declared at the time of filing IGM. These exceptional situations need to be taken care so
that penal action is not initiated mechanically.
6.3 Amendment of IGM after the arrival of vessel or aircraft would not be treated as late filing.
However, the veracity of the amendment would be examined by the Assistant/ Deputy
Commissioner of Customs for the purpose of invoking penal provisions under Section 116 of the
Customs Act, 1962.
6.4 Procedure for disposal of amendment applications within specified time limits have been
prescribed by the Board. All minor amendments are expected to be approved on the same day
while all major amendments are expected to be generally approved within 24 hours of submission
of complete application.
[Refer Circulars No. 13/2005-Cus, dated 11-3-2005 and No. 44/2005-Cus.,dated 24-11-2005,
Circular No. 14/2017- Customs dated 11.04.2017; Please refer para 23 of
Chapter 3 regarding approval related to amendments.]
7. Penal liability:
7.1 Any mis-declaration in the IGM will attract the penal provisions of Sections 111(f) and 112 of the
Customs Act, 1962. Thus, the goods concerned would be liable to confiscation and the person
concerned liable to penalty.
8. Exclusion from IGMs of items originally manifested:
8.1 Exclusion from IGMs of items originally manifested is permitted only on the basis of an application
from the person filing the IGM and on production of the documentary evidence of short shipment
of goods. Further, prescribed fee will have to be paid for the amendment, if permitted.
8.2 Exclusions or amendments of items in the IGM involving reduction in number of packages or
weight thereof is allowed on an application from the person filing the IGM and on the basis of
connected documentary evidence. Such excisions or amendments will only be allowed if
investigation proves that the excess quantity was originally shown in error. In the absence of such
proof, the application will be dealt with by the Manifest Clearance Section at the time of closure of
the manifest file.
8.3 Applications for the exclusion or amendments of items for which Bills of Entry have been noted will
be dealt with by the Manifest Clearance Section if made within two months of the arrival of the
vessel.
8.4 In respect of a vessel, an IGM shall, in addition, consist of an application for grant of Entry Inwards.
9. Enclosures to Import General Manifest:
9.1 The various IGM forms are designed according to IMO-FAL Convention. The forms have to be
filed in prescribed sizes alongwith the following declarations:
(i) Deck Cargo declaration/certificate.
(ii) Last port clearance copy.
(iii) Amendment application (when relevant).
(iv) Income Tax Certificate in case of export cargo.
(v) Nil export cargo certificate.
(vi) Port Trust “No Demand” certificate
(vii) Immigration certificate.
(viii) Application for sign on/sign off of crew (when relevant).
(ix) Application for crew baggage checking when they sign on (when relevant).
[Refer Circular No.36/95-Cus., dated 10.04.1995]
10. Procedure for filing IGM at EDI Custom Houses:
10.1 In case of sea cargo the shipping lines are required to submit the electronic version of the IGM
through the EDI Service Centre or through internet at ICEGATE, containing all the details and
particulars. It is to be ensured that all the particulars and details of the IGM are correct and that
details of House Bill of Lading are also incorporated in case of consol cargo.
10.2 In case of air cargo the airlines are required to file IGM in prescribed format through electronic
mode. The IGMs should contain all details and particulars, including the details of the Master
Airway Bills and the House Airway Bills in the case of consol cargo. The airlines are also required
to furnish the additional information, namely, the ULD numbers for use by the custodians.
11. Filing of Stores List:
11.1 When entering any port/airport, all vessels are required to furnish to the proper officer, a list (or
“nil” return) of ships stores intended for landing (excluding consumable stores issued from any
Duty Free Shops in India). Retention on board of imported stores is governed by Import Store
(Retention on board) Regulations, 1963. The consumable stores can remain on board the vessel
without payment of duties during the period the vessel/aircraft remains as “foreign going”.
Otherwise, such consumable stores are to be kept under Customs seal. Even in respect of foreign
going vessels, only stores for immediate use may be left unsealed while excessive stores such as
liquor, tobacco, cigarettes, etc are kept under Customs seal.
12. Entry Inwards and unloading and loading of goods:
12.1 On arrival of the vessel, the shipping line needs to approach the Preventive Officer for granting
Entry Inwards. Before making the application, the shipping line has to make payment of the Light
House dues, as may be applicable.
12.2 Section 31 of the Customs Act, 1962 requires that the Master of the vessel shall not permit
unloading of any imported goods until an order is given by the proper officer granting Entry Inwards
to such vessel. Normally, Entry Inwards is granted only after the IGM is delivered. The date of
Entry Inwards is crucial for determining the rate of duty in case of filing of prior Bill of Entry, as
provided in Section 15 of the Customs Act, 1962. However, unloading of items like accompanied
baggage, mail bags, animals, perishables and hazardous goods are exempt from this stipulation.
12.3 No imported goods are to be unloaded unless specified in the IGM/Import Report for being
unloaded at that Customs station and such unloading shall only be at places provided therefor.
Further, imported goods shall not be unloaded except under the supervision of the proper officer.
Similarly, for unloading imported goods on a Sunday or on any holiday, prior notice shall be given
and prescribed fees paid.
12.4 Board has clarified that unloading of liquid bulk cargo from the ship to the bonded storage tanks
through pipe lines is allowed under the provisions of Section 33 of Customs Act, 1962 subject to
the conditions that the premises where the goods are received through pipe lines is a bonded
warehouse under Section 58 or 59 of Customs Act, 1962; permission of the proper officer is
obtained for unloading prior to discharge of such cargo; and other requirements under the
Customs Act, 1962 are fulfilled. If the bonded tanks are located outside the jurisdiction of the
Commissioner in charge of port permission may be granted subject to concurrence of
Commissioner in whose jurisdiction the bonded tanks are located, and other safeguards as
necessary.
[Refer Instruction F.No.473/19/2009-LC, dated 9-5-2011]
13. Other liabilities of carriers:
13.1 The person in charge of vessel/aircraft has other legal liabilities under the Customs Act, 1962, the
non-fulfilment of which may result in suitable penal action, as reflected in Sections 115 and 116 of
the Customs Act, 1962. For instance, Section 115 provides for confiscation of vessel / conveyance
in the following circumstances:
(a) A conveyance within Indian waters or port or Customs area, which is constructed, adopted,
altered or altered for concealing goods.
(b) A conveyance from which goods are thrown overboard, staved or destroyed so as to prevent
seizure by Customs officers.
(c) A conveyance, which disobeys an order under Section 106 to stop or land, without sufficient
cause.
(d) A conveyance from which goods under drawback claim are unloaded without the proper
officer's permission.
(e) A conveyance, which has entered India with goods, from which substantial portion of goods
are missing and failure of the master to account therefor.
(f) Any conveyance, when used as means of transport for smuggling of any goods or in the
carriage of any smuggled goods, unless the owner establishes that it was used without the
knowledge or connivance of the owner, his agent and the person in-charge of the vessel.
13.2 Under Section 116 of the Customs Act, 1962, penalty may be imposed on the person incharge of
vessel if there is failure to account for all goods loaded in the vessel for importation into India or
transhipped under the provisions of Customs Act and these are not unloaded at the place of
destination in India or if the quantity unloaded is short of the quantity to be unloaded at particular
destination. Penalty may be waived if failure to unload or deficiency in unloading is accounted for
to the satisfaction of competent officer. Thus, if there is any shortage, which is not satisfactorily
accounted for, the person incharge of the vessel will be liable to penalty, which may be twice the
duty payable on the import goods not accounted for.
[Refer Circulars No.36/95-Cus., dated 10-04-1995, No.110/2003-Cus.,dated 22-12-2003,
No.15/2004-Cus., dated 16-2-2004, No.30/2004-Cus., dated 16-4-2004, No.34/2004-Cus.,
13-5-2004, No.13/2005-Cus, dated 11-3-2005, and No.44/2005-Cus., dated 24-11-2005]