Passenger facilitation: mandatory customs officer training and establishment of help desks to assist international travelers.
The Board requires mandatory training for every Customs officer newly posted at international airports in rules and polite, professional facilitation of passengers, with six monthly refresher programmes, coordination with other agencies and NACEN, and in house options. It also mandates establishment of prominently signposted Help Desks after immigration and in departure halls, staffed by properly selected officers with required forms and information, and requests compliance reports or communication of implementation difficulties.

Unit Quantity Code declaration required - accurate UQC and full goods description now central to export compliance and valuation.
Exporters and customs brokers must declare the correct Unit Quantity Code (UQC) for each tariff item and provide complete, specific descriptions of export goods, including valuation-relevant parameters such as composition, grade, configuration, size, type, and whether machine-made or handmade; inconsistent UQC usage and vague descriptions degrade data quality and may trigger delayed clearance, cancellation, scrutiny, investigation, and penal action.

Concurrence requirement: Chief Commissioner unnecessary when appeal waived solely for monetary threshold; required if order accepted on merits.
Where a Commissioner decides not to file an appeal solely because the matter falls below the prescribed monetary threshold, concurrence of the Chief Commissioner is not required; however, if the Commissioner proposes to accept an adverse order on its merits even though the amount is below the threshold, concurrence of the Chief Commissioner must be obtained before accepting the order.

Customs broker licensing compliance: failure to submit required documents will bar entry and processing privileges.
Only Customs Brokers who have submitted documents as specified in Public Notice No. 257/2013 and whose licences and identity cards are updated in the intranet will be permitted to process documents and enter customs areas; brokers who fail to submit the required documentation by the stated deadline will be denied entry and processing privileges, with no further extension of time.

Review petition: advisory against filing but department urged to pursue appeals before courts and tribunals.
Board sought Law Ministry advice on filing a Review Petition after the quashing of Circular No. 18/2006-Cus. and dismissal of the Department's SLP; the ASG advised against review as an in limine dismissal does not constitute law under Article 141, but the Board directs field formations to pursue appeals before Courts and Tribunals since the Department has a prima facie strong case on merits.

Manual registration of IEIS credit scrips: present originals, obtain DGFT verification, record and process manually.
Manual registration procedure requires presentation of original IEIS duty credit scrips to Customs Group VII, obtaining DGFT confirmation of genuineness by fax, verification of licence particulars and alerts, manual entry of licence details in the Group VII register, and subsequent manual processing of Bills of Entry with appropriate debits and endorsements.

Customs duty exemption requests under Section 25(2) require prescribed documentation, non-commercial use undertakings and verification.
Guidelines set conditions and procedures for ad-hoc customs duty exemptions under Section 25(2), excluding routine government imports except grant-funded cases with Secretary-level approval, permitting exemptions recommended by the Ministry of External Affairs or Ministry of Culture, and allowing case-by-case medical and disaster relief exemptions. Applicants must submit specified documentation (goods particulars, invoices, audited financials, donor certificates, undertakings and Annex certificates) and comply with non-commercial use conditions; Customs and Central Excise commissioners coordinate verification, reporting and enforcement within prescribed timelines.

Disposal of seized refrigerant cylinders restricted to PESO licensed producers, requiring export or sanctioned destruction under ODS rules.
Disposal by auction of seized/confiscated refrigerant cylinders is restricted to firms holding valid licences under the Gas Cylinder Rules and PESO approved capacity to decant, purify, repack, store and handle refrigerants; purchasers must be specifically permitted in writing to decant by the Chief Controller of Explosives and must undertake that material bought from Customs is exported or destroyed in accordance with applicable ODS rules. Cylinders must be de shaped and scrapped per Rule 36 and IS:9200 with reports sent to the Chief Controller.

Export obligation monitoring: Chief Commissioners to submit reports only for March, July and November for compilation.
Chief Commissioners must continue using the prescribed monthly reporting template to monitor cases where export obligation periods and time for furnishing evidence have expired, but shall submit reports to the inspection office only for months ending March, July and November; only these triannual reports will be compiled by the inspection office and made available to the Board, while other monthly reports remain for local monitoring and follow-up.

Import controls on food safety: randomized testing, labeling and shelf life requirements govern clearance and laboratory testing procedures.
Import controls integrate Customs with food safety law by permitting Customs officers to draw samples for testing at Central Food Laboratories or authorized labs when FSSAI or Port Health Officers are unavailable; high risk consignments require mandatory testing, perishables may be cleared on trusted certificates with random post clearance sampling, and non perishables must satisfy labeling and initial consecutive consignment testing before eligibility for randomized checks.

First-time import document verification expanded to include excise and service tax registrations, with relaxation available on request.
First-time import document requirements at ACC, Sahar are amended to accept VAT/Sales Tax/Central Excise/Service Tax registration certificates and to accept Income Tax Return, VAT or Sales Tax Return, Central Excise Return or Service Tax Return as proof; importers unable to furnish any listed document may seek relaxation from the Additional Commissioner, and assessing officers must promptly place such files for orders, while other requirements remain unchanged.

Export certification requirement for specified minerals under export law; only certificates from recognized inspection agencies accepted.
Export of scheduled Group I and Group II minerals and ores is allowed only if accompanied by a certificate issued by an agency recognized under the Export (Quality Control and Inspection) Act; exporters, customs agents and trade are required to use the listed recognized inspection agencies operating at Visakhapatnam.

Customs Area designation imposes custodian responsibility and supervised handling rules for LCL import cargo at the CFS.
Designation of part of M/s. Glovis India Pvt. Ltd.'s CFS as a Customs Area for LCL import cargo requires container movement with prescribed permission, destuffing under customs supervision, container-wise tallying against import manifests with endorsements, and recording of shortages. The CFS as CUSTODIAN is responsible for shortages or pilferage and may incur duty liability; it must stack cargo by manifest and container number, provide secured storage for sensitive goods, follow statutory disposal for unclaimed cargo, and submit monthly statements to Customs.

Container scanning requirement mandates RMS-selected import containers be scanned and stamped, with suspicious images flagged for examination.
Selected import containers are identified by the Risk Management System and must be transported by custodians/terminal operators to the Container Scanning Facility, where inspectors verify container and seal numbers and stamp the EIR as "SCANNED" (blue) for clean images, "SUSPICIOUS; SEND TO DC/AC, Container Scanning Division" (red) for suspect images, or "NOT SCANNED DUE TO ODC/OVERWEIGHT/EMPTY/COASTAL" as applicable; scanned containers are returned to CFS/ICD and examination at destination follows stamping instructions.

Alignment of working days: LCSs at Raxaul and Jogbani to operate six days with Saturday half day to facilitate trade.
Land Customs Stations at Raxaul and Jogbani shall operate six days a week on a full day basis with a half day on Saturday, and the remaining LCSs under the Commissionerate shall operate six days a week, a directive issued to align working days with counterpart stations across the Nepal border to facilitate trade; the notice supersedes the earlier public notice and is promulgated for wide publicity among trade stakeholders.

Vehicle overloading compliance required: exporters, custodians and port authorities must ensure vehicles carry only permissible registered weights.
Exporters, custodians of ICDs/CFSs and importers must ensure vehicles carrying export or bulk import cargo are not loaded beyond the permissible weight shown in the vehicle's Registration Certificate; container movements between Tuticorin Port and ICD/CFS move under bonds executed by custodians.

Licence requirement for diagnostic x ray equipment: AERB authorisation needed before import, sale, possession or use.
Only diagnostic x ray equipment that is type approved and NOC validated may be marketed and used, and a licence from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board is required for handling radiation sources-including manufacture, possession, storage, use, transfer, export, import and disposal-under the Atomic Energy (Radiation Protection) Rules, 2004; importers must obtain licences and notify customers of this requirement.

Recognition of customs brokers association as authorised body to satisfy regulatory requirements under Customs Brokers Licensing Regulations.
Recognition is accorded to the Tuticorin Customs Brokers' Association under Regulation 24 of the Customs Brokers Licensing Regulations, 2013, identifying the body (previously the Tuticorin Customs House Agents' Association) and its office at Shipping House, A/14, IInd Floor, World Trade Avenue, Tuticorin; the Commissioner of Customs registers and designates it as the authorised association at this Customs Station to meet Regulation 24 requirements.

Finalization of provisionally assessed BEs requires ICES electronic finalization, ICEGATE duty e-payment, and bond closure procedures.
A new ICES 1.5 module mandates electronic finalization of provisionally assessed Bills of Entry: Assessing Officers forward BEs to Group AC/DCs who finalize using role-specific access. If finalization raises duty, the system issues a challan with duty and interest, payment is made via ICEGATE e-payment or bank branch and integrated into ICES 1.5, after which bond credit/closure is obtained. If duty is unchanged or reduced, bond credit/closure follows directly and refunds proceed under existing procedures. Finally assessed BE copies (Customs and Importer) are generated after duty integration and bond actions.

Education Cess on CVD: default levy introduced; eligible importers must claim exemption by quoting prescribed notification code.
Education Cess and Secondary & Higher Education Cess on CVD will be levied by default for Bills of Entry filed on or after 13.07.2014; eligible importers must claim exemption in the new Bill of Entry column by quoting 013/2012 SI. No. 1. For Bills filed before 13.07.2014, the cesses must be paid manually and the 4% SAD must be adjusted to reflect the increased Central Excise cesses, with differential SAD collected separately.