Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, Chairman, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), along with other Members of the Board, released the National Time Release Study (NTRS) 2024 report.
NTRS 2024 is 4th annual national-level study adopting a standardized methodology and covering the bills of entry (for imports) and shipping bills (for exports) submitted during the first week of January 2024 which were tracked till February 7, 2024, for cargo clearance via 15 major customs formations- categorised into 4 categories- Seaports, Inland Container Depots (ICDs), Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) and Air Cargo Complex (ACCs).
For imports, the study has noted that, out of the 15 ports covered under the purview of the study, 9 ports have witnessed a reduction in the average release time in 2024 vis-a-vis previous year. Also, there has been reduction in release time in case of ICPs and ACCs – a significant 50 percent reduction in case of ICPs and 6 percent reduction in case of ACCs in 2024 compared to the corresponding period in 2023.
NTRS 2024 has also looked at the CBIC Pre-payment Customs Compliance Verification (PCCV) initiative, in which all the Customs formalities are completed and final clearance is pending only for want of payment of duties by the importer.
It was noticed that once the payment is made, the final Clearance is granted by the Customs through automated Machine Release process, on an average, within 3 minutes from the duty payment. Further, the bills of entry that have all the three features – advance bills of entry, facilitated bills of entry, and AEO (Trusted Clients programme) bills of entry — report a significantly lower average release time of 46% for seaports, 36% for ICDs and 45% for ACCs than the overall release time for that port category.
For exports, the study distinguishes between regulatory clearances (customs release), completed with the grant of Let Export Order (LEO), and the wider aspect of physical clearance, completed with the departure of the carrier with the goods. It was noticed that the time of the arrival of the cargo at the customs station/port to its regulatory clearance, marked by grant of Let Export order (LEO) has reduced for ICDs and ACCs in 2024 vis a vis 2023.
In absolute terms, the average release time taken in export Customs clearance regulatory process, in 2024, stood at 22:49 hours for seaports, 30:20 hours for ICDs, 3:50 hours for ACCs and 5:28 hours for ICPs.
