PESHAWAR: Collectorate of Customs Preventive squad deputed at Customs Station Torkham thwarted an attempt of smuggling auto parts worth Rs10 million.
Sources told Customs Today that used/new, auto parts for LTV/HTV, worth Rs10 million approximately were seized by the customs staff at Customs Station Torkham.
The Customs Preventive staff posted at Customs station Torkham received a tip-off which led to the seizure of auto parts worth Rs10 million.
The Assistant Collector Preventive constituted a team including inspector and superintendent along customs sepoys to tackle any attempt of smuggling across the border.
During checking, a truck was searched thoroughly and found that the carpet of truck was loaded with non duty paid auto parts worth Rs 10 million.
The auto parts of vehicles were being smuggled through Afghanistan border to be sold on a large scale in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Under the existing customs’ rules, automobile parts classification is one of the major issues that affects their import, since the duty is calculated on the basis of their weight rather than value.
This creates a wide disparity in the valuation of imported parts and the net result is that local auto parts manufacturer lose their competitiveness. In order to curtail this menace, the government should implement realistic customs’ rules, take effective measures to completely block the smuggling of automobile parts and ensure the recovery of 16 percent of the sales tax from all automobile parts importers and sellers.
Every year, economy is losing a huge amount of revenue in form of taxes and duties due to the smuggling of automobile parts. The smugglers usually work in collusion with government authorities to bring inferior or substandard parts into the country. This has severely damaged our auto parts industry and the usage of these inferior parts also affects the performance of the vehicles and endangers the safety of the automobile users.
Custom authorities do hard attempts to stop trafficking of auto parts. When the authorities seize illegal equipment and auto parts, they fine the accused to ultimately generate revenue for customs exchequer.
