QUETTA: Bona fide business is flourishing at the collectorate of Quetta due to perfection in anti-smuggling exercise, new amendments in Customs Act-1969 and in the Budget 2017-18 which will be helpful for coping with the smuggling activities. The Collectorate of Quetta has not only achieved its allocated revenue target of Financial Year 2016-17 but it will also surpass the assigned revenue target in the days to come. The Anti-Smuggling Organization Quetta will perform its duties during the Eid holidays 24/7 at the check-posts located near the hometowns of the employees so that they can meet both responsibilities. During the public holidays, notorious people try to smuggle contraband goods whose activities will be checked properly.
This was stated by Deputy Collector Preventive (Car Cell and Anti-Smuggling Organization) Junaid Mahmood of the Model Customs Collectorate Quetta while giving an exclusive interview to Customs Today.
He said the overall performance of the Anti-Smuggling Organization (ASO) is well only due to adoption of new techniques for conducting smuggling-free and bona fide business.
The Car Cell has been facing problems in the past. For example, the cell had no safe place for parking the impounded and NDP vehicles unless their cases are decided in the court. The cell has been parking the smuggled and NDP vehicles on the roadsides. Now the department has its own places to park impounded and smuggled vehicles.
During the current Financial Year from July 2016 to June 2017, the Car Cell Quetta has impounded 571 vehicles valued Rs413.89million. Previously, the employees of the cell had been injured in attacks by smugglers and traffickers but now they have safe and protected places to execute their responsibilities.
The Deputy Collector Preventive, answering a query, said the Customs Preventive Quetta has been working independently and without any assistance from any other agency for the last three months. He added that it is a fact that the ASO Quetta and other law and enforcement agencies seized huge contraband goods together but the recent amendment in Section 07 of the Customs Act -1969 has also helped increase the interceptions as the federal government has made the Highway Police and the Motorway Police bound to assist the Customs Anti-Smuggling (ASO) staff whenever they are required.
He said the ASO Quetta made some new changes to discourage the smuggling activities as numbers of customs check-posts have been increased massively. Due to the enforcement of new techniques and enhanced vigilance of the department, most of the smugglers and tax evaders are bound to do business through ports and other legal and proper channels.
He told CT that the ASO’s new and old staffs have recently been trained by the Frontier Constabulary (FC) due to which ASO staff is in a better position to take actions against the notorious smugglers with an iron hand.
