The Union finance ministry has introduced Risk Management Systems (RMS) in exports in customs locations where the Indian Customs EDI Systems (ICES) is operational. This trade facilitation measure will enable low risk consignments to be cleared based on self assessment of the declarations by exporters. This will enable the government to enhance the level of facilitation and speed up the process of cargo clearance. It will be effective from July 15 this year.

By expediting the clearance of compliant export cargo, the RMS for exports will contribute to reduction in dwell time, thereby achieving the desired objective of reducing the transaction cost in order to make the business internationally competitive.

With this, the present practice of routine verification of self-assessment and examination of shipping bills will be discontinued and the focus will be on quality assessment, examination and post clearance audit (PCA) of shipping bills selected by the RMS.

Shipping bills filed electronically into ICES through the service centre or the ICEGATE will be processed by RMS. The RMS will process the data through a series of steps/ corridors and produce an electronic output for the ICES. This output from RMS will determine the flow of the shipping bill in ICES i.e. whether the shipping bill will be taken up for customs control (verification of self-assessment or examination or both) or to be given “Let Export Order” directly after payment of export duty (if any) without any verification of self assessment or examination.

The RMS in exports will be implemented in two phases. In the first phase, the RMS will process the data and provide the output to ICES only up to goods examination stage. In the second phase, the RMS will also process the shipping bill data after the export general manifest (EGM) is filed electronically and provide output to ICES for selection of shipping bills for drawback scrutiny and PCA.

To begin with, RMS in exports will be introduced at ICD Mulund and ICD Patparganj on 15.7.2013.