Initial technical glitches and errors made by traders in providing shipping details under IGST had led to a lot of delays in providing the refund, said Joint Commissioner of Central GST and Central Excise, V. Pandiraja. Addressing a meeting of manufacturers and traders involved in exports, he said that most of the delay was due to errors in giving details of shipping bills. Now, refunds were being done faster.
Under the post-GST regime, works of Central Excise and Customs have been separated. From January 1, 2018, Chief Commissionerate Customs (Preventive), Tiruchi, would become functional and all customs-related functions across Tamil Nadu, except for Chennai region, would be under it. K. Ramesh, Assistant Commissioner of Customs, Cuddalore Division, said that additional Customs divisions would come up at Madurai, Tiruppur, Chengalpattu. He said that under the GST regime claiming refund under IGST had been made hassle-free. “It is online with less human intervention. It would be processed automatically and quickly,” he said.
Exports can be made without payment of IGST, i.e., through letter of understanding (LUT) or bond. All applications of LUT and bonds should be accepted within three working days.
For those who export goods on payment of IGST, no separate refund claim is required. The shipping bill itself is a claim application. However, Mr. Ramesh said that export general manifest should be provided without any error so that the system could automatically process the refund.
“In many cases, lack of EGM, failure to provide right bank details led to failure in validation of the refund claim,” he said.
Besides, he said that e-sealing of containers was made mandatory from January 1,2018. The e-sealing would be done through radio frequency identification seals that would carry details of the materials being exported and details of the exporter, time and date of sealing. “Any tampering of the seal will lead to manual verification of goods,” he said.
This process of e-sealing ensured ease in exports and would save time for the exporter. Only those consignments that are selected by risk management division would be manually examined. Assistant Commissioners, A. Muthiah (CGST and CE), V. Rajkumar Moses (Customs) were among those who spoke.

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