Who takes ownership of an EODB measure?

I grumbled yesterday. I had to sign 61 times to pay for eight imports.

One of the early Ease Of Doing Business (EODB) measures announced was reducing the number of documents to be submitted while paying for trade imports.

Importers would submit a letter and Form A1 duly signed to the Authorised Dealer (AD) Bank making the remittance, alongwith copies of

· invoice — first and last page self attested · packing list — first and last page self attested· IEC — self attested· airway bill/bill of lading — self attested· and the original Triplicate bill of entry

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released Circular No. RBI/2014–15/467 / February 12, 2015 which dropped the need to submit Form A1.

“To further liberalise and simplify the procedure, it has been decided to dispense with the requirement of submitting request in Form A-1 to the AD Category –I Banks for making payments towards imports into India. AD Category –I may however, need to obtain all the requisite details from the importers and satisfy itself about the bonafides of the transactions before effecting the remittance”

To our surprise our AD Bank continued to insist on Form A1 as the RBI notification did not do away with the FEMA declaration that was part of Form A1.

21 months later came the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Circular №55/2016-Customs/23rd November, 2016 on “Reducing/eliminating printouts in Customs Clearance“ .

This circular had a clause which read :

In view of the above systemic integration, RBI has decided to do away with the requirement for the Banks to obtain a physical copy of Bill of Entry from the importer as an evidence of import because data can be transferred in secured manner from the system of Customs department to IDPMS. It has been, therefore, decided to discontinue the printing of Exchange control copy of BoE unless there is a requirement of printing like in the case of manual BoEs.

There was however a problem. This Exchange Control copy — the Triplicate of the Bill of Entry — is the proof of import for exporters claiming duty drawback and for importers wishing to pay for trade imports. (The Original Bill of Entry remains with Customs, the importer is given the Duplicate and Triplicate).

Since a Triplicate Bill of Entry is now not provided by Customs, our AD Bank insists we photocopy every Bill of Entry, self-attest the first and last page and submit it as they need to match the Bill of Entry number, date and port of arrival with the system. Printing by Customs has been replaced with photocopying by importer.

And that is how I ended up signing 61 times yesterday — instead of 45 had we continued to get a Triplicate Bill of Entry from Customs . ( Two signatures on each of 8 invoices, 8 packing lists, 8 BoE, one on each Bill of Lading, one on the IEC copy and the covering letter and three on Form A1 and its annexure- just in case someone wonders how it adds up !). One could perhaps ask : why should documents be self attested when they will be matched with IDPMS?

This led me to wonder: Who Takes Ownership of an Ease Of Doing Business (EODB) measure?

Yvonne M. Tsikata, in a 2001 paper, https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/owning-economic-reforms links ownership to success of economic reforms. EODB is part of an economic reform measure and to be successful requires a ‘high degree of ownership embedded in a political and institutional framework’.

Of relevance to EODB from the paper are:

1. Reform requires historical antecedents and political commitment.

2. Success of reform requires governments to articulate priorities.

3. Capacity of institutions implementing the measure is crucial to ownership.

This last point is arguably where we face challenges in India even in instances like those above, that do not require ‘participation in policy making by the population’ (which is also an important ingredient for the success of economic reforms, per the author).

The capacity of implementing institutions, to build upon political commitment and process design developed by technocrats, must be assessed.

Who owns the EODB measure that streamlines the process of import remittances?

It is clear that policymakers in the RBI and CBEC correctly identified an area that would benefit from an EODB measure. The delivery of the measure however depends on the implementing institutions i.e. the AD Banks. Their capacity to review the design of such a measure and assess benefit to themselves seems inadequate.

The ownership and management of an EODB process from identification to definition to execution is critical if a much needed and appreciated measure is to be implemented evenly. It would also lead to a desirable outcome — public satisfaction.

Who takes ownership of each and every EODB measure? Our ease of doing business depends in large part on the answer to this question.