ASHEVILLE: India is preparing further customs and banking reforms, including risk-based import screening and a high-level review of the banking sector’s role towards building a developed India, Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman said.
In an exclusive interview with IANS on the sidelines of the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting here, FM Sitharaman said the next phase would build on changes already made in direct and indirect taxation.
“We’ve done quite a few things about the direct and indirect taxes. Customs, we’ve done some, we’ll have to do more. We’ll be taking those up,” she said.
The government is working to make the movement of imported goods through Indian ports more seamless, the Finance Minister said.
A key proposal involves deploying scanners and concentrating checks on high-risk importers. Other consignments could then be cleared automatically, reducing delays for businesses and easing congestion at ports.
“We are trying to bring in scanners and have high-risk importers alone go through them, and the rest of them can be cleared automatically,” FM Sitharaman said.
“A lot of reforms in the customs area,” she added.
The approach would allow customs authorities to focus their scrutiny on higher-risk imports while facilitating faster clearances in other cases.
However, FM Sitharaman did not provide a timetable for introducing the scanners or implementing the proposed automatic clearance system. The government has also appointed a high-level committee to examine the banking sector and its future role in achieving India’s development goals.
“The banks, of course, we’ve appointed a high-level committee to look into banking for Viksit Bharat,” she told IANS. (IANS)
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