The finance ministry has deferred by a month the mandatory self-sealing of export containers and use of radio-frequency identification tags to November 1 as traders are facing difficulties in locating vendors of the tracking devices.
In a bid to improve ease of doing business, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) in the ministry has decided to do away with the sealing of containers with export goods by officials and move towards a 'trust based compliance environment'
The process had to come into force from October 1, but "considering the difficulties expressed by trade associations in locating vendors for RFID seals, the Board had decided that the date for mandatory self-sealing and use of RFID container seals is deferred to November 1, 2017", said a CBEC circular.
The existing process may continue till such time, said the circular to senior officials of Customs and Excise.
The CBEC said it had received representations from several associations seeking information on the availability of 'RFID Tamper Proof One-time-bolt container seals.
"Several potential vendors have communicated with the Board and field formations regarding availability of seals and their intention to provide reader devices (for reading seals) at select or all ports/Inland Container Depots)," the circular said.
In order to ensure that electronic seals deployed are of a reliable quality, the CBEC said it has adopted international standards for "high security seals".
As a measure of data integrity and security of sealing, it said that vendors are also required to ensure that the Tag Identification (TID) number is captured in their data base and the Import-Export Code (IEC) of the exporter is linked to the same at the time of sale of the seals.
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