MUMBAI: The Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations in India (FFFAI) in its Annual General Meeting (AGM) rolled out the long awaited CBLMS presentation by Mr. Ashok Chakravarty, Deputy Commissioner Customs, Mumbai Zone to elaborate on the newly introduced Customs Broker License Management System (CBLMS) Portal. The FFFAI AGM was held on September 30, 2022 in Mumbai.
FFFAI appreciated the efforts of CBIC & Mumbai Customs Zone 1 on launch the CBLMS Portal.
According to Mr Chakravarty, underlined objective of CBLMS is to facilitate the trade and improve Ease of Doing Business further. In his presentation Mr Chakravarty highlighted that CBLMS portal will act as a central platform for managing the Customs Broker’s licensing processes with end-to-end IT integration and smart automation thereby to strengthen faceless mechanism. The project is being launched pan India with an aim to minimize the physical interface, to bring uniformity in procedures, to process applications in time and to bring in accountability. With the implementation of CBLMS, the process of management of the Customs Brokers will become completely online.
In addition to applying for new licenses, the CBLMS portal will integrate data of existing Customs Brokers in ‘CB Profile’. Here the existing Customs Brokers will populate the data for validation by officers of Customs.
CB Profile in CBLMS will capture complete data in respect of existing Customs Brokers (License Details, Concern/Firm/Company Details, Employee Details etc.) at all Customs Stations where it is transacting business under CBLR, 2018 to integrate them in CBLMS portal. This data has to be entered by all the existing Customs Brokers which will then be validated by officers of Customs of respective Policy Sections (Customs Broker Section).
The registration of Customs Brokers under CB Profile in the portal will be done in two steps and detailed SOP has been displayed for same on https://cblms.gov.in.
Moreover, all other applications will have to be made online viz extension of permission, modification of CB license, making passes, duplicate license and cancellation, etc.
Once the application form is completely filled and the form is successfully submitted by the Customs Broker, the application form gets logged in the system and a unique application reference number is generated. The Customs Broker can no longer edit the form unless the form is sent back by the validating officer.
Salient features of the CBLMS
• To minimize physical interface between custom broker and customs department by making management of custom broker licensing fully online.
• To bring in uniformity in procedure to do away with different policies and procedures followed by different customs locations across the country.
• To timely process applications to in a time bound and transparent manner.
• To fix accountability in processing the applications.
• To provide status updates to the CBs/applicants on real time basis with transparency including issues if any and successfully completion of the process/issuance of the license.
Mr. Chakravarthy invited further feedback / recommendations from the trade regarding CBLMS portal for considering the same. He also appreciated the support extended by Mr Dushyant Mulani, President and Mr Kiran Rambhia, Immediate Past President and other members of BCBA to successfully launching CBLMS in Mumbai.
Commending the Customs initiatives, Mr Shankar Shinde, Chairman, FFFAI said, “FFFAI appreciates the rollout of the pilot project by Mumbai Customs zone 1, Mr. PK Aggarwal, Principal Chief Commissioner of Customs; Principal Commissioner General, Mr Sunil Jain and Additional Commissioner Dr Deepak Sharma. We thank Deputy Commissioner of Customs Mr Ashok Chakravarty for his insightful presentation on CBLMS to the FFFAI Members on the occasion of its 59th Annual General Meeting.” And concluded thanking CBIC Chairman Shri Vivek Johri and Member Customs. Shri Rajiv Talwar for the facilitation measures created with IT enabled technology,” A way forward” toward achieving paperless , contact less , faceless as one to the Government of India initiatives.
FFFAI will be happy to assist all it’s 28 Member Association and their members with support from BCBA task force to have all the Customs Brokers registered.
The FFFAI AGM was attended by a large number of FFFAI members including Office Bearers and Board of Advisors, where detailed discussions held during last one year especially the achievements of the 24th Biennial Convention of FFFAI held in Chennai from August 12-14, 2022. The AGM also discussed the future challenges/opportunities before the CBs/FFs and course of actions by FFFAI.
