Flying into India? Brace for new immigration rules

Passengers flying into India will have to fill up a new immigration form from Saturday to declare Indian currency exceeding Rs 10,000 being brought by them, among others. The 'Indian Customs Declaration Form' carries additional fields for declaration of dutiable goods and baggage (including hand baggage) in a separate column for passengers entering into India, said the new rules notified by the Finance Ministry. An Indian citizen would need to fill up the immigration form only when he or she goes out of the country. There will be no immigration form for Indian citizens returning from abroad, the rules said. The new form will be different from the detachable perforated strip which is a part of the immigration card at the moment. For the first time, travellers would be asked to specifically declare any prohibited articles, gold jewellery (over free allowance), gold bullion and Indian currency exceeding Rs 10,000 in the new form. A passenger will have to give details of countries visited in the past six days and mention the passport number on the new form, which was not there earlier. Old fields like declaration of satellite phone, foreign currency exceeding $5,000 or equivalent, aggregate value of foreign exchange including currency exceeding $10,000 or equivalent, meat, meat products, dairy products, fish or poultry products and seeds, plants, fruits, flowers and other planting material have been retained in the new format. As per norms, maps and literature where Indian external boundaries have been shown incorrectly, narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, goods violating any of the legally enforceable intellectual property rights and wildlife products comes into the category of prohibited items. Passengers of Indian origin and foreigners of over 10 years of age residing in India and coming from Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and China are eligible for duty free allowance of Rs 6,000. Whereas, a duty free allowance of Rs 35,000 can be availed by such passengers in case they are coming from other than these four countries. As per rules, a tourist of foreign origin gets a duty free allowance of Rs 8,000. Indian passenger, who has been residing abroad for over an year, can get gold jewellery worth Rs 50,000 (for man) and Rs one lakh (for woman) without paying any import duty. All passengers are also eligible to bring with them liquor or wine up to two litres, 200 numbers of cigarettes, up to 50 numbers of cigars or 250 gms of tobacco. Passengers of 18 years and above age can also bring one laptop or note book computer without payment of customs duty, the rules said. Customs duty is leviable at the rate of 36.05 per cent (basic customs duty 35 per cent+education cess at the rate of three per cent) on the value of dutiable goods that is in excess of the duty free allowance. There are 19 international airports in the country-Srinagar, Amritsar, Jaipur, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Nagpur, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Goa, Bengaluru, Chennai, Calicut, Coimbatore, Tiruchirapalli, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Port Blair. Source :  http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/immigration-form-india-entry-indian-currency/1/203859.html