chapter 2 ICES - intosaiitaudit.org

1 Report of 2002 (Indirect Taxes - Customs) chapter 2 : INDIAN CUSTOMS ELECTRONICDATA INTERCHANGE Customs Electronic Data Interchange System (ICES) envisages acceptance ofCustoms documents electronically and exchange of information electronically withother agencies involved in international Even after nine years the project is far from complete. Software has beendeveloped for only 33 modules out of the envisaged 73. This resulted innon-realisation of some of the major objectives of the programme apartfrom unending liability towards monthly software development charges.(Paragraph (a)(i)) Poor planning, inadequate allocation of resources and not following thewell established life cycle of a computerisation project were essentiallyresponsible for the delay.(Paragraph (a)(iii)) No major gains in trade facilitation are visible since EDI connectivity hasnot been established and only a very small percentage of consignments arebeing cleared within the three days stipulated in Citizen's Charter.

2 (Paragraph (b))Financial Management Financial estimates both for the pilot and the All India projects had to berevised due to poor formulation of initial estimates, over-looking necessaryingredients of the project .(Paragraph )Procurement Optimum value for money was not realized due to procurement ofunderconfigured servers, accepting hardware without testing, failure toobtain price/technology advantage at the time of delivery and insisting oncomposite procurement of hardware and software.(Paragraph )Report of 2002 (Indirect Taxes - Customs)Implementation The delay in completion of site preparation work resulted in delay incommencement of on-line operations in 22 locations, besides keepinghardware idle for periods ranging from 4 to 17 months, the departmenthad to incur infructuous expenditure on maintenance of the earlier system.

3 (Paragraph (a)(i))Economy Incorrect estimation of the volume of documents to be handled at ICDS urat resulted in incurring infructuous expenditure of lakhtowards site preparation work.(Paragraph (a)) Imprudent selection of VSAT technology for large volume of data accessled to infructuous expenditure of crore.(Paragraph (b)) Non-invitation of open tenders for annual maintenance contract forequipments such as air conditioning sets, UPS, diesel generator, computerhardware/software etc. at Delhi Custom House resulted in avoidableexpenditure of lakh.(Paragraph (c))Security The department is yet to formulate a security policy identifying threatperceptions and safety measures. WORM (write once read many) opticaldisk installed in the servers has not been made use of.

4 (Paragraph (b) to (c) (iv)) Failure to establish system controls like change of passwords at regularintervals, cross verification of data entered in the system etc., facilitatedfraudulent payment of drawback of Rs. crore at Delhi Custom House.(Paragraph (e) (ii))System Lapses Incorrect/non-updation of drawback rates/import duty, absence ofvalidation controls at the time of data entry and deficiency in software haveresulted in leakage of revenue.(Paragraph )Report of 2002 (Indirect Taxes - Customs) Indian Customs EDI System (ICES), the all India computerisation of CustomHouses envisages acceptance of customs documents and exchange of informationelectronically in centralized/structured formats, integrating customs with other agenciessuch as Reserve Bank of India, Director General Foreign Trade, Custodians of Importsand Exports Goods and Regulatory agencies involved in international trade.

5 Within thecustoms house, the documents would move from the desk of one customs officer toanother in electronic main objectives of ICES defined by the Department were: (i) respond more quicklyto the needs of the trade, (ii) computerisation of customs related functions includingimport/export general manifest control, ex-bond clearance of warehoused goods, goodsimported against export promotion schemes, monitoring of export promotion schemes,(iii) reduce interaction of the trade with Government agencies, (iv) provide retrieval ofinformation from other custom locations to have uniformity in assessment andvaluation, (v) provide management information system for policy making and itseffective revenue and pendency monitoring and (vi) provide quick and correctinformation on import/export statistics to Director General of Commercial Intelligenceand Statistics.

6 Initially, the Department commenced (January 1994) computerisationprogramme under ICES at Delhi Customs house as a Pilot project . In March 1996, itwas decided to extend it to 20 other customs locations. Data for the clearance ofcustoms documents is captured under ICES by two methods viz. (i) establishment ofservice centres in each custom location which would accept document fromimporters/exporters for data entry and (ii) transfer of data by importers/exporters fromtheir premises in the prescribed format using a communication project has been successfully commissioned at 23 locations in the country coveringall major ports, air ports, Inland Container Depots and land customs stations. Thedepartment has created an awareness for the acceptance and use of computer at the userlevel thus paving way for the smooth change from the traditional method of clearanceof customs documents to electronic clearance.

7 ICES promotes transparency by reducingarbitrariness and uncertainty in the processing of documents. There is an automatedrandom allocation of electronic declarations to the Apparising officer. A declaration,once registered with the system, is handled on a first-come-first serve basis. At the timeof declaration the validation features ensure that only valid data is accepted by thesystem and invalid data is rejected at the service centre. The system provides formanagement of parameters such as exchange rates, drawback rates, rates of duty on thebasis of directories which are updated by the systems manager, thereby eliminatingerrors previously encountered in the manual processing of documents. A concept of`Green Channel' has been introduced which provides waiver of examination by customson the basis of importers profile.

8 The only interface between customs and trade is at thetime of collection of a part of envisioned move from customs control to trade facilitation the followingmeasures have been adopted for streamlining the customs procedure under the ICES:(i) Elimination of divergent practices in the application of Customs Law andProcedures at different customs stations by effective monitoring and analysis of thecomputerised data base. (ii) Minimised physical examination of goods by effectivelyReport of 2002 (Indirect Taxes - Customs)using risk management based targeting techniques. (iii) The drawback payment systemhas been re-engineered to provide for direct disbursement of the amount into theexporter's bank accounts after the goods have been exported. Generally, the drawbackis credited within 48 hours of the departure of the vessel or the Set upThe overall planning and implementation of the computerization programme waslooked after by the Joint Secretary (Customs) at CBEC till June 1997.

9 A Directorate ofSystems (DOS), New Delhi was formed in July 1997 headed by a Commissioner(Systems), who is the nodal authority for implementation and monitoring of theprogramme under the supervision of Member (Customs). The DOS is assisted byAdditional/Deputy Commissioners at Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata of AuditA comprehensive review of planning and execution of ICES was taken up to:a)assess the effectiveness of the project in realising its objectives within thestipulated time frame,b)confirm that standard good practices were followed to ensure that the projectwas executed efficiently and at least cost,c) ascertain the adequacy and effectiveness of controls in the this purpose, records of the Directorate of Systems, CBEC were checked. Inaddition, Sea Customs, Chennai was selected for evaluating system from other Customs locations was also collected wherever are contained in the succeeding of ICES(a)Slow progress(i)Even though nine years have elapsed since the project was conceived in August1992, it is far from complete.

10 Its progress and current status are as under:Coverage of locationsUnder ICESN umber of modules(Maximum:73)Up to 1996-971251997-985--1998-999--1999-20004 --2000-0148 Total2333It took four years to implement the pilot project . 22 remaining locations were coveredin a staggered manner over five years thereafter. Likewise, out of a maximum of 73modules required for covering all types of transactions, software was developed by NICR eport of 2002 (Indirect Taxes - Customs)for only 25 in the pilot project . Thereafter only eight additional modules were taken upduring 2000-01, leaving forty modules undeveloped. Some of the important moduleswhich have not yet been covered are: (i) ex-bond clearance of goods under imports, (ii)goods imported under schemes like DEEC, EPCG, 100 per cent EOU, DEPB, (iii)unaccompanied baggage clearance, (iv) controlling of Import general manifest andtranshipment of goods from seaports to various places, (v) final assessment of theprovisional assessment done under the system for imports, (vi) internal audit modulefor exports, (vii) monitoring of import licence and export obligations, (viii) levy of antidumping duty and (ix) incorporating sample test results under Department stated (October 2001) that only 23 modules remained to be does not take into account the 17 modules that were identified but not included inthe MOU with NIC.