The Department of Customs (DoC) has initiated stricter measures to prevent revenue leakage, along with new leadership. The DoC has put forward the policy of adopting zero tolerance on revenue leakage.
Director General of DoC Shovakanta Poudel says that direct online monitoring has been intensified, with customs offices undergoing scrutiny during weekends and outside regular working hours.
According to him, during the monitoring, if there is any discrepancy in the customs assessment, classification of goods and declaration of goods, immediate action will be taken according to the Customs Act. If serious revenue evasion is suspected during this monitoring, such consignments will be stopped and investigating teams will be dispatched from the DoC. Now, DoC can conduct monitoring at any time.
Similarly, to make customs control effective, policies such as full use of information technology, use of risk management in customs checkpoints, regular system testing, collection of discount amounts throughout the year and immediate removal from his/her position if any employee is found to have been involved in revenue leakage.
Through direct monitoring, the DoC has collected additional revenue of Rs 120 million in Shrawan (mid-July to mid-August), Rs 140 million in Bhadra (mid-August to mid-September) and Rs 200 million in Ashoj (mid-September to mid-October) of the current fiscal year. In the same period of the last fiscal year, through direct monitoring, Rs 20.3 million more revenue was collected in Shrawan, Rs 18.6 million in Bhadra and Rs 8.3 million in Ashoj.
Compared to the last fiscal year, it has been seen that about 824 percent more revenue has been collected through direct monitoring.
The DoC claimed that due to the effective policies taken by the department, overall revenue collection has improved directly and indirectly, the growth rate of revenue collection is higher than the overall trade growth, the internal control aspect of customs has been effective, uniformity in customs assessment has been maintained in all customs offices and accuracy in customs declaration has started.
The customs administration has collected 11.2 percent more revenue in the same period of the current fiscal year than from mid-July to mid-October of the last fiscal year. Rs 97.79 billion revenue was collected in the last fiscal year, and revenue of Rs 100.8 billion has been collected in the current fiscal year.
Compared to last year, there was only a 1.69 percent increase in import trade, but there has been significant progress in revenue collection.
