New customs interface “moving towards normalcy”, claims CBIC
New Delhi, April 21, 2023
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has claimed that the new customs duty payment system, riddled with technical glitches since its introduction from April 1, “is moving towards normalcy” with more than 27% duty payments done through the platform on Thursday, even as users continue to flag its erratic functioning.
Trade representatives have been complaining about delays in import clearances due to frequent tripping of the Indian Customs and Central Excise Electronic Commerce/Electronic Data Interchange (ICEGATE) portal due to changes relating to the electronic cash ledger (ECL).
On April 6, the CBIC had conceded “difficulties” are being faced industry in making duty payments over the automated system and had attributed them to “unanticipated technical difficulties on the common portal and with the authorised banks.”
Assuring stakeholders that technical teams are working “overtime” to fix “teething” troubles in the “upgraded and modern” customs duty payment system, the Revenue Department had decided to waive penal interest charges on delayed payments.
In a series of tweets late Thursday, the CBIC claimed that the ECL is moving towards normalcy and receiving more acceptance among users. “The progress towards normalcy, supported by data, is as below: Users have done a total of ₹1200 crore customs duty payments using ECL today. 18,064 e-wallets have been activated since the launch of ECL on April 01, 2023,” it noted.
“Today 27.78% of challan payments were made through ECL rather than Netbanking or NEFT/RTGS. We have observed a 99.9% success ratio for payments made through ECL vis-a-vis other modes today ONLY 203 wallets continue to be blocked today due to the ongoing reconciliation exercise but will be unblocked soon,” the Board emphasised.
While CBIC urged industry to “kindly continue to show us your support while we work to make your experience on our ICEGATE portal more convenient and seamless”, many users were not impressed.
Several stakeholders said that the portal went down even on Friday and shared screenshots in response to CBIC’s tweets, while some said payments made through banks are yet to reflect in the system. Another user said that 28% of payments being made through a system 20 days after its introduction cannot be construed as an achievement and asked why changes were introduced without testing.
[The Hindu]
