LAHORE: In order to cope up with the rising menace of smuggling in Punjab, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has restructured Customs Central Region, establishing new regions including Customs Central Region Appraisement and Customs Central Region Enforcement.
The FBR has made amendment in SRO 607 (I) 2019 by issuing SRO 753 (I) 2019 which said that Chief Collector of Customs Appraisement Central Customs House, Lahore will be heading Customs Collectorate of Appraisement Lahore, Customs Collectorate Faisalabad and Customs Collectoarte Sialkot.
Similarly, the chief collector of Customs Enforcement Central Region will be heading Lahore Customs Preventive, Lahore Customs Allama Iqbal International Airport and Multan Customs Collectorate.
Earlier the chief collector of Customs Central Region was exercising its authority on the Collectoarte of Customs Lahore Preventive and Collectorate of Customs Lahore Appraisement, Collectorate of Customs Multan and Collectorate of Customs Faisalabad.
Earlier, there was no collectorate of Enforcement working in the Central Region and the Chief Collector of Customs Central Region was looking after the matters related to enforcement. However, Collectorate of Customs Enforcement was working in Karachi.
In the new restructured set-up, chief collector of Customs Enforcement will be having an upper hand over the Collectorate of Appraisement as the enforcement will look after containers of imports at the entry points of all dry ports. The Enforcement Collectorate will also exercise it powers of de-sealing the containers of import.
The new set-up in Punjab in the Customs has been introduced to effectively control the menace of rising smuggling especially in the Central Region and Punjab.
