The Central Board of Excise and Customs has discontinued the process of factory stuffing the containers under the in-person supervision of an official of Department whereas the exporters are currently required to self-seal their export containers by using an e-seal. Electronic sealing of containers can be used only for fully loaded container that is sealed at a custom approved premise, by an authorized exporter entity. If a full load container is received at a port or ICD with electronic sealing RFID, then it would be the equivalent of a container sealed under the supervision of an Official. E-sealing will therefore replace self-sealing done by exporters.
The exporters who were used to the sealing at their factory premises under the process of supervised factory stuffing would be obviously entitled for self-sealing process. Exporter wanting to avail this procedure should inform the concerned Custom Officer for permission for self-sealing at the approved premises. Once allowed, the exporteris expected to comply to the responsible Superintendent or Customs each time self-sealing is processed at custom approved premises.
An e-seal is a sealing module with RFID chip inside, which can be identified by enabled devices via handheld reader or any other means. Each e-seal has a unique tag which contains e-stored information. The custom official at the gateway port would verify the intactness of the seals by using handheld scanners which are connected to the Vendor’s Data Retrieval System. RFID seals should comply with ISO 17712:2013(H) and ISO/IEC 18000-6 Class 1 Gen 2. According to compliances set by the Customs, the e-seal should be a RFID tamper proof single time bolt seal, having a unique serial number, which has to be bought by the exporters on their own for the self-sealing procedure.
Self-Sealing or IEC and Factory stuffing, permission required for purchasing of e-seal from the vendors. Importer Exporter Code, Shipping Bill Date, E-seal number, Container Number, Destinations Customs station for export, Shipping Bill Number, Date of sealing, Time of sealing and Trailer-Truck Number are to be entered compulsorily in the e-seal through online module or vendor approved application to the exporters. The data once confirmed with e-seal cannot be altered.
Exporter can block the e-seal allotted to him if he wants to discontinue using it. E-Seals are made like the traditional bolt seal to give the same interface and easy sealing of a container. Pushing the bolt into cap confirms the seal. Usually, an e-seal is sold with two different parts and packaged together, and measures should be taken that parts which are only packed together are used with each other.
Manufacturer and merchandise exporters are covered under this and the seals cane be procured from authorized vendors. Exporters need to register on the export related portal, and they can also track the movement of the goods via the portal.