Import of software via data links permitted for export units, subject to approval, certificates, and customs filing within specified timeframes.
Units in EOUs, EPZ, EHTP and STP may import software electronically where remittance permission exists, subject to procedural safeguards: prior approval of annual requirements and estimated foreign exchange outflow by the Development Commissioner/Director STPI; immediate written notification and a certificate of import and value after each import; presentation of that certificate to the jurisdictional Customs officer within forty eight hours; filing of a Bill of Entry with the certifying authority's certificate and bank attested invoice within forty eight hours to obtain notional out of charge; routing invoices through banks; and accounting for such imports for export obligation and NFEP calculation.

Modification of IEC certificate requires full procedural compliance, while PAN-only incorporation is permitted without fees.
Applicants seeking fresh IECs or modifications must follow the Handbook procedure and submit all relevant documents with applicable fees or penalties; modifications will not be available on the web. However, incorporation of PAN alone into the IEC is not treated as a modification for fee or documentary purposes and may be effected on submission of Appendices 1A and 2A with a copy of the PAN.

Delegation of waiver power: Chief Commissioners may decide interest waivers on warehoused goods; refer only when beyond authority.
Authority is delegated to Chief Commissioners to decide waivers of interest on customs duty within the prescribed delegated limit without referring matters to the Board; waiver requests for warehoused goods must be received and examined at Commissionerates, and cases exceeding the Chief Commissioner's delegated power must be forwarded to the Board with comments. Issuance of standing instructions and public notices to guide field staff and trade is required.

Export controls on bones and bone products require CAPEXIL certification and health certificate for shipments to specified foreign markets.
Exports of bones and specified bone-derived products to the European Union require a CAPEXIL certificate validating the production process for the exporting establishment, and exports of bones and bone products intended for human consumption (including ossein and gelatine) require establishment approval and a Health Certificate issued by CAPEXIL.

Transshipment bond rules require carrier bonds with security and permit bank guarantee release on proof of safe landing.
Carriers must execute continuity bonds securing safe carriage of transshipped containers, with bonds based on a notional value; mother bonds may be used as running bonds maintained at the port of origin and debited on each transshipment, with bank guarantees furnished per trip and released upon submission of proof of safe landing at destination ICDs/CFSs.

Interim financial disclosure: half year results must be board approved, limited reviewed and filed with exchanges within two months.
Companies must prepare half yearly results (first two quarters) in the prescribed proforma, obtain Board approval, and subject them to a Limited Review by auditors (or a Chartered Accountant for PSUs). The Limited Review report, in prescribed wording, must be filed with stock exchanges within two months of the half year. If the sum of the first and second quarterly unaudited results for any proforma item differs by 20% or more from the reviewed half year results, a board approved explanatory statement must accompany the Review Report. The proforma's capital disclosure is amended to require Paid Up Equity Share Capital with face value indicated.

Revision of fees for Standing Counsels establishes unified rates, appointment terms, renewal criteria and payment rules.
Revision of the Department's schedule of fees and engagement terms for Standing Counsels and Junior Standing Counsels effective 1 June 2000 prescribes initial three year appointments, renewal procedures conditioned on annual performance appraisal and recommendations by the Chief Commissioner/Director General, allocation of litigation responsibility to specified officers, limits on private practice, senior counsel retainership entitlement, and a detailed fee and allowance schedule governing appearance, drafting, clerkage, travel, out of pocket expenses, payment stages, deductions for late certified judgments and rules for connected and uncontested cases.

Amendments to Standard Input-Output Norms update SION entries, adding, deleting and revising chemical, engineering and misc. items.
The Public Notice amends the Standard Input-Output Norms in the Handbook of Procedures, Volume II by deleting, substituting and correcting specified SION entries and by adding new entries in the Chemicals and Allied Products, Engineering Products and Miscellaneous Products sections; it prescribes amended import-item descriptions, alternative inputs and quantities, and, where applicable, content- or FOB-value-based limits for permitted inputs.

Transaction value determines assessable value, and recoveries linked to sale are includable unless expressly excluded by rules.
Section 4 provides that where excise duty is charged with reference to value, the transaction value - price actually paid or payable for goods sold for delivery at the time and place of removal to an unrelated buyer where price is the sole consideration - shall be the assessable value; transaction value includes amounts paid or payable by the buyer in connection with the sale (such as packaging, warranty, advertising and service charges) but excludes excise, sales tax and other taxes actually paid.

Company name availability: insurance-related names may be approved for new incorporations without regulator consultation.
Permits registration of new company names containing the words insurance, assurance or risk corporation without prior consultation with the insurance regulator, following the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority Act, 1999 and a regulator reference lifting the embargo; expressly confines this permission to newly incorporated companies and prohibits existing companies from changing their names to include such insurance-related terms because they are not allowed to carry on insurance activities.

Dispensation of statutory records shifts mandatory excise registers to private recordkeeping, while preserving duty-accounting obligations.
Amendments to the Central Excise Rules dispense with many prescribed statutory registers and forms, replacing them with a requirement that manufacturers maintain private records containing specified minimum information. Manufacturers must keep a daily stock account and record fields such as value of finished goods and duty payable/paid particulars; omission of required information in private records constitutes contravention attracting penal provisions. Industry-specific rules have been amended to incorporate essential fields, procedures for computerised record-keeping and furnishing lists of records to the Department are prescribed, and certain return deadlines have been extended to align with fortnightly duty payment.

Charitable import eligibility clarified: registration, community-benefit function and Foreign Contribution clearance required for imports.
Charitable, missionary and religious institutions registered under societies or trusts law or approved by Central or State Government may import under the Export and Import Policy, 1997-2002 provided the importer is an established institution functioning for the common benefit of the community and produces necessary clearance under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 1976, as amending paragraph 2(g) of Public Notice No. 3(RE-2000)/97-2002.

IEC validation requirement now mandates permanent IEC codes for specified exempt importer-exporter categories to enable customs clearance.
From 1 July 2000, a validated Importers-Exporters Code (IEC) is required for customs clearance; the DGFT amended the Handbook of Procedures to add sub paragraph (vi) to paragraph 4.6, prescribing permanent IEC numbers to be used as operative identifiers by specified non-trade categories, including central and state government departments and agencies, diplomatic personnel and UN officials, baggage claimants, hospitals and institutions importing for personnel use, limited-value Nepal/Myanmar border consignments, Ford Foundation, ATA carnet users for exhibitions, and the Director, National Blood Group Reference Laboratory.

DEPB re-export rules: defective imports may be re-exported with a certificate enabling near-full DEPB credit restoration and reissuance.
A new DEPB provision permits re-export of imported goods found defective or unfit: Customs will issue a Certificate generating 98% of the DEPB credit debited on export, and the Licensing Authority will issue a fresh DEPB with the same port of registration and validity equal to the remaining period of the original DEPB, subject to Department of Revenue guidelines. Additionally, claim filing timelines are revised and multiple DEPB rates, value caps, product descriptions, and agency listings in appendices are amended or corrected.

Product classification under ITC(HS) clarified: DGFT issued specific Exim codes for listed export import items following committee decisions.
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade issued Policy Circular No. 14(RE-2000)/97-02 clarifying ITC(HS) classifications for specific export and import items under the 1997-2002 schedule. A committee examined requests submitted under the policy, assigned Exim codes and notified applicants of the decisions. The circular publishes the itemised list with assigned Exim codes and any remarks, and states the classifications are issued with the approval of the Director General for use by exporters, importers and customs authorities.

Service tax administration moved to divisional headquarters; assessees must approach their local Deputy or Assistant Commissioner for registration and assessment.
Service Tax matters are to be handled at respective Divisional Headquarters; all work including registration and assessment is to be pursued with the jurisdictional Deputy Commissioner or Assistant Commissioner of the Central Excise division for assistance and enquiries.

Consolidation of LCL cargo permitted at inland ICDs/CFSs with prescribed customs resealing, transfer and container restuffing procedures.
Permits congregation and consolidation of LCL export cargo at inland ICDs/CFSs and movement to hub points/CFSs near gateway ports for reworking and export, with custodians allocating storage, exporters selecting or delegating shipping line nomination, intact movement of single shipping bill consignments, customs resealing and shipping line identification marks after inland examination, handover of transference copies and commercial documents to custodians, stuffing and sealing of containers in presence of Customs, gateway verification and tallying of restuffed containers, retention/return of transference copies, immediate drawback at inland ICDs/CFSs, and prohibition on re examination at gateway unless seals are tampered or authorised by senior Customs officers.

Volatility margin rules revised with higher thresholds and new slabs; price bands relaxed and margin withdrawal for delivery trades.
SEBI adjusted equity market risk controls: compulsory rolling settlement scrips are exempted from additional volatility margin and receive relaxed price-band treatment per prior procedure effective early July; account period settlement retains volatility margins under a raised threshold with a simplified slabbed margin schedule effective post-June 30, 2000; price-band relaxations apply to 200 identified scrips effective early July. The earlier 5% additional margin on scrip-wise net sale positions is withdrawn. Exchanges may permit delivery-marked trades to substitute bank guarantees for cash margin, with exchanges to determine implementation modalities.

Monetary limits for departmental appeals: file and assess appeals by assessment year when tax effect exceeds prescribed threshold.
Monetary limits for filing departmental appeals are to be applied by treating "each case taken singly" as each assessment year for each assessee, so that appeals must be filed for the particular assessment year when the tax effect for that year exceeds the prescribed limit. Adverse judgments should be contested where prosecution proceedings are contemplated only if the prosecution concerns the same point under appeal; points unrelated to the contemplated prosecution need not be contested.

Export ceiling allocation for coarse grains: centralised APEDA allocation with mandatory reporting and monthly disclosure requirements.
A ceiling for coarse grain exports for the licensing year 2000-2001 has been released and placed at the disposal of APEDA, which will allocate the ceiling per its procedures. APEDA must ensure the ceiling is not exceeded, report exhaustion of the ceiling to the Department of Commerce EP (Agri.II) Section with intimation to DGFT, and furnish monthly statements detailing exporter name, quantity allowed, FOB value and destination to the Department and the Stat. Division.