Expeditious clearance of perishable goods: customs must monitor Bills of Entry to prevent delays in essential consignments.
The circular requires expeditious clearance of consignments of perishable goods, life saving drugs and other essential items and directs Customs Houses to review and enforce existing instructions so these consignments are processed without delay. It mandates establishment of senior level monitoring arrangements to track processing of all Bills of Entry for such goods to prevent clearance delays.

Monitoring of bank guarantees requires proactive enforcement or revalidation to prevent revenue loss and ensure compliance.
Collectors must personally monitor bank guarantees and bonds to ensure enforcement or revalidation is taken before expiry to prevent revenue loss; the Director General of Inspection will monitor the Collectorate-wise position to ensure adherence to this monitoring regime.

Subcontracting by export oriented units permitted subject to case-by-case approval and safeguards against duty-unpaid leakage.
Sub-contracting of part of production by 100% Export Oriented Units to Domestic Tariff Area units is allowed case-by-case; Collectors must assess bonding feasibility, identification of goods on return, input-output norms, and undertakings/bonds, and require adequate safeguards to prevent leakage of non-duty paid materials.

Duty-free import by post: goods for export-oriented units are generally ineligible but may be considered for ad-hoc exemption.
The Ministry of Law has advised that goods imported by post do not qualify for exemption under Notification No. 13/81-Customs for export-oriented units; however, individual instances may be considered for discretionary ad-hoc exemption, and authorities are requested to recommend specific cases with full details and to report any pending applications.

Bonded warehouse reporting: waiver of physical warehousing requires submission of quarterly statements to ministry for approval.
Cases where the Assistant Collector waives the requirement of physical warehousing for transfer of imported goods to a customs bonded warehouse in the interior must be reported in periodic statements and forwarded to the Ministry for post-facto approval; Collectors are directed to send these statements regularly.

Project import classification prevents individual goods' exemption claims, fixing uniform tariff treatment and barring de-registration.
Goods imported under a registered project contract are classified under the Customs Tariff provision for project imports and assessed at the uniform project rate; such goods lose their identity for tariff classification so that exemption notifications or differential rates applicable to individual goods do not apply. Once a contract is registered as a project import with the Customs House, de-registration of the whole contract or any part of it should not be allowed.

Bond signing under Customs Act: agents may authenticate importer signatures and attestations remove personal appearance requirement.
The Board dispenses with personal attendance for bond signing under the Customs Act where the authorised signatory's signature is attested by a Notary Public, Justice of the Peace, Magistrate or in a Civil Court, and directs that the practice of Custom House Agents authenticating importer signatures, as followed at the Bombay Custom House, be extended to other Customs Houses by issuing necessary field instructions.

Deposit of confiscated gold: mandatory inventory, separate sealed packing, mint acknowledgement and procedures for tampered consignments.
Procedure requires itemwise inventorisation of confiscated gold showing description, weight and purity, consolidated by category. Gold bars with foreign markings, primary gold and ornaments must be separately packed and sealed; packages locked and sealed before the Assistant Collector and seals broken only before an authorised Mint officer, with facsimiles of seals sent to the Mint. The Bullion Keeper must give categorywise acknowledgement and any quantity or weight variation must be investigated; damaged seals accepted with remarks and reported, but consignments with clear tampering returned to the Collectorate.

Depreciation methodology for capital goods removed from export and trade zones clarified; assessment uses used car rates and quarterly flat rate.
Depreciation for capital goods taken out of Free Trade Zones, Export Processing Zones or 100% EOUs and assessed for duty is to be calculated using the depreciation rates applicable to used cars at assessment; a uniform quarterly flat rate applies thereafter, subject to an overall cap. Depreciation eligibility requires prior in zone use for not less than three years for FTZ/EPZ and completion of the stipulated export obligation for 100% EOUs.

Customs duty split for ships-for-breaking triggers excise levy on ship-breaking scrap unless prior higher duty was paid.
Customs duty on ships-for-breaking is divided into a basic customs duty per Light Displacement Tonnage and a separate additional duty, with auxiliary duty nil. Excise duty is imposed on ship-breaking scrap derived from ships that have paid the restructured customs duties, while scrap made from ships that paid the earlier higher basic duty is exempted to prevent double taxation; such scrap is also specified as an input qualifying downstream products for excise exemption.

DTA sales by export-oriented units require excise equal to customs duty and must have import licence and approvals.
Clearances of a limited proportion of production by a 100% export-oriented unit into the domestic tariff area are subject to excise duty equal to the customs duties leviable on like imported goods and require an import licence under the relevant Import Policy appendix; prior specific approval from the Export Commissioner is also required for permitting such DTA clearances.