Clarifications on the legislative changes in Section 46 of the Customs Act, 1962

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....isory No.10/2021 dated 29.03.2021. These changes facilitate pre-arrival processing and assessment of Bills of Entry (BE) by mandating their advance filing thus leading to significant decrease in the Customs clearance time. The amended Section 46 requires an importer to file a BE before the end of the day (including holidays) preceding the day of arrival of the vessel/aircraft/vehicle carrying the imported goods at a Customs port/station at which such goods are to be cleared for home consumption or warehousing. However, Board is empowered to prescribe different time limits for such filing in certain cases, but by not later than the end of the day of arrival of the vessel/aircraft/vehicle at the Customs port/station. Changes in Section 46 ....

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....the Bill of Entry (Forms) Regulations, 1976 vide Notification No.35/2021-Customs (N.T.) dated 29.03.2021 in case of manual filing of BEs. 2.1. For clarification of the importers and trade, the changes that have been made effective vide the above stated notification dated 29.03.2021 are as follows :- S. No. Customs Station Bill of Entry is Required to be Filed Latest by End of the Day of Arrival of the Vessel/Aircraft/ Vehicle Bill of Entry is Required to be Filed Latest by the End of Day Preceding the Day of Arrival of the Vessel/Aircraft/Vehicle (1) (2) (3) (4) 1. Sea Port Imports consigned from following countries viz. 1. Bangladesh 2. Maldives 3. Myanmar 4. Pakistan 5. Sri Lanka Impor....

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....test by the end of day preceding the day of the arrival of the vessel. Removal of the need for MBL/MAWB in Advance BE : 3. Several representations have been received regarding the non-availability of MBL/MAWB within the prescribed time-limits leading to delay in filing advance BE. Upon carefully examining this matter and noting the genuine difficulties of the importers, Board has decided to do away with the requirement of MBL/MAWB for the filing of advance BE. Only the reference to House Bill of Lading (HBL)/ House Airway Bill (HAWB) would be sufficient at the time of advance filing. Thus, an importer can now file the advance BEon the strength of either a MBL/MAWB or the HBL/HAWB or both. 3.1 Further, to regularize the BE filed in ....

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.... case of air), as the case may be. However, in such cases, the HBL details will necessarily have to be declared during the BE filing. Further, to ease the regularization with Arrival Manifest, Importer would have the option to update the Master Bill of Lading in the Bill of Entry at any point in time later to regularize/link the BE with Arrival Manifest through a simple online amendment process. For this, importer/customs broker can file a BE amendment of the IGM details with amend code as A_PBEIGM. The mandatory details to be furnished in the IGM table while filing this amendment are enclosed as Annexure A. The said amendment would be auto approved in the Customs automated system without the need for approval of a Customs officer and would....