The Reserve Bank of India has today placed on its website the Report of the Working Group on Import Data Processing and Monitoring System (Chairman Shri A. K. Pandey, CGM, FED, RBI). The Working Group was constituted in October 2015 comprising representatives from Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Department of Revenue (DoR), Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI), Foreign Exchange Dealers' Association of India (FEDAI) and select public and private sector banks to examine gaps in the current import follow up and monitoring procedures. In its report submitted on March 11, 2016, the Working Group has recommended putting in place a robust and effective IT based import monitoring system analogous to the existing Export Data Processing and Monitoring System (EDPMS).

The Working Group has recommended IT based solution to effectively plug gaps and remove vulnerabilities in existing systems and procedures without adding any cumbersome procedures while undertaking import transactions. The main features of the proposed IDPMS are as follows:

• Primary data on import transactions from Customs and SEZ will first flow to RBI secured server whereupon depending on the Authorised Dealer (AD) code shall be shared with the respective banks for taking the transaction forward.

• IDPMS shall provide an interface to all agencies involved in the import process, viz. Customs, SEZ and AD banks.

• To track the import transactions through banking system, Customs and SEZ will modify the Bill of Entry format to display the AD Code of bank concerned.

• Every import related transaction by any of the above agencies shall necessarily require a concomitant system update.

• The updated status of any import transaction; party wise, bill of entry wise or advance remittance wise, shall be visible to all user agencies on real time basis.

• Instances where prescribed regulatory time limits are exceeded shall be immediately picked up by the system which will generate alerts.

• Banks shall be able to effectively monitor related transactions, customer-wise, amount-wise, etc. considerably easing the follow up burden.

• The system shall be universal in coverage, both in terms of (a) value of import transactions – every single import transaction will be tracked, and (b) type of import transaction – regardless of whether a transaction begins with an advance remittance to supplier or, by a Bill of Entry update in the system by Customs evidencing shipment arrival for which payment is required to be made within stipulated period.

The Reserve Bank of India, in collaboration with the Customs and other stakeholders has started working on the suggested IT based processing and monitoring system & the date of implementation of the new system will be notified separately.

Ajit Prasad
Assistant Adviser

Press Release : 2015-2016/2468