LAHORE: Customs Preventive has emphasis its special focus on the Air Freight Unit (AFU) advancement as 70 to 75 percent of the total revenue of the collectorate is collected from the station.
These views were expressed by Collector of Customs Preventive Zulfiqar Younas while interacting with Customs Today here at his office the other day. He said that clearance system has been rationalized according to the needs of importers and exporters speedy clearance.
“A large fraction of the clearance will be under taken through green channel providing the importers and exporters opportunity to get their consignments cleared at the earliest besides an electronic queue management system has also been evolved which would help customs agents, importers and exporters easy access to the customs assistant collectors, deputy, additional collectors and appraisers etc on the basis of first come, first serve basis repelling any chance of nepotism,” the collector explained.
Import from the AFU Allama Iqbal International Airport has a visible edge over the export. Fifty five per cent import while 45 percent export is conducted from the station. Mainly high value of industrial spare-parts and other such items are imported and exported.
The collector informed that in order to streamline stock positions of the seized vehicle and other illegally imported items state warehouse is also being digitalized so that any chance of misuse of the seized goods may be minimized.
Younas added that in this regard a state of the art building is being built up near Thokar Niaz Baig where sized vehicles and goods could be protected from deterioration there by adding to the important revenue to the national exchequer.
“CCTV camera, proper scanning of items would enable the collectorate to do a better inventory management,” the collector Preventive stated.
Talking about anti-smuggling activities the collector said that in order to effectively control smuggling under the limits of the collectorate all the scouts have been given monthly target besides monitoring of the scouts has also been intensified through the implementation of latest software. He added that he has adopted zero tolerance policy against all kinds of corruption and the ASO staff have also been instructed strictly never get indulge in such activities. If any staff is found guilty he will face the consequences, the collector warned.
To a query, the collector of customs said that currently, the visitors’ traffic between Pakistan and India has fall down to a significant level, however, it will go up in the coming months. In order to cater the need of the passengers of both the sides it has been decided to set up another terminal for the passengers.
Currently, Passenger Facilitation Center (PFC) temporarily is divided for the passengers and from the same premises passengers are arriving in and leaving Pakistan. In this context, we have planned to set up a new building for that arrival and departure could be managed from the two different terminals, the Collector of Customs Zulfiqar Younas explained, adding that the improved capacity of the PFC would enable us to manage the passengers’ traffic effectively and efficiently.
Younas said that in this regard Federal Board of Revenue has been requested to provide funds to the collectorate to materialize the plan.
In answer to another question about India and Pakistan trade especially in the wake of the time when India has resorted to aggression against Pakistan, the collector said that a normal trade between the two countries is on. Instead Pakistan’s export to India has increased when compared to import from India.
However, import from India has reduced due to the fall of import of soybean extract due to which the customs have to face losses in revenue beside reservations of Plant Protection Department ginger’s import from India has also fallen which `adversely effected the revenue, he concluded.
