Working on concept to reduce average cargo release time to 1 hr: CBIC

Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBIC) Chairman Vivek Johri said on Friday that they are committed to working out a concept to reduce the average release time of goods to one hour in the future.

He said that on the trade facilitation side, although it had made very significant progress, there was still a lot to do.

“We are charting our vision for the future as the COMCEC Center for Artificial Intelligence, especially for Amrit Kal, we are committed to putting in place a single customs system. The concept of customs is that we are targeting an average release time of one hour,” he said here at an event.

He said the trade environment is changing, and there are a lot of challenges.

Citing an example, he said, with many free trade agreements approaching, there is a need to look into ways to verify the certificate of the country of origin.

He added that the government is taking a series of steps to facilitate export and import operations.

There is still a lot of work to be done, he said, adding that the National Trade Facilitation Committee (NCTF) has drawn up an ambitious plan of action “for us and where certain targets have been given to us in terms of issuance drop shipping time.”