OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS: AIR CARGO(EXPORT) :

NEW CUSTOM HOUSE: NEW DELHI

Public Notice No:41/ACE/2003

All Exporters / Custom House Agents and members of the trade are requested to take note of the facility of filing of documents on the Indian Customs & Excise Gateway hereinafter referred to as ICEGATE. The facility for submission of documents through Service centre and floppy submission would, however, continue to be available for the members of the trade at present.

ICEGATE has been in operation for the last 12 months whereby EDI messaging for the regulatory agencies such as DGFT, DGCIS AEPC etc. have been operational. Some Airlines have commenced trials in respect of the filing of manifests through ICEGATE at Air Cargo Complex, Delhi. It is now proposed with effect from 1^st April 2003, to commence filing of the Shipping Bills through ICEGATE for export from Delhi Air Cargo complex.

The steps involved are as follows:

1) Preparation

Creation of the electronic Shipping Bill:

Please note that RES package, which was supplied to some Exporters and Custom House agents by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has already been modified keeping in view the requirements of ICEGATE. Those RES users who have not yet collected the revised versions may collect it from the suppliers viz., NIC.

The operation of the RES package i.e., the procedure for creation of the Shipping Bill would be the same as it was for filing on the NICNET. However, the procedure for submitting the document is different in the case of ICEGATE.

Members of the trade who do not wish to use RES package provided by NIC but wish to develop their own software for the creation of Shipping Bills/ Bills of Entry for filing on ICEGATE may refer to the Message Implementation Guidelines which will be published on www.icegate.gov.in in a few days.

B. Transmission Mechanism

The transmission mechanism for submitting shipping bill and related messages to the Custom House is listed in Annexure A. It may be noted that there are two options available to the members of the trade for submitting the documents to this Custom House using ICEGATE. The CHA/exporter may choose one of the options according to his convenience.

2) Obtaining Digital Signature Certificates (this will not be required at present).

Central Board of Excise & Customs would be the Certificate Authority for issuing Digital Signature Certificates and it is in the process of setting up a Certificate Authority. Guidelines in this regard will be issued after obtaining the necessary license from the Controller of Certifying Authorities. In the present phase of operations, Digital Certificates will not required.

3) Registration

The members of the trade desirous of carrying out transactions through ICEGATE must complete the registration process. The ICEGATE registration process consists of two stages:

· ICEGATE Member Registration

· ICEGATE Trading Partnership Registration

ICEGATE Member Registration

The CHA/ Importer/ Exporter is required to fill the membership form enclosed at Annexure B. and email the form to ICEGATE at registration@icegate.gov.in.

The option of filling these forms online would be available after Digital Signature Certificates are issued to the members of the trade. At the moment this service is not available.

ICEGATE Trading Partnership Registration

(This activity has to be carried out at ICEGATE by Directorate of System. Members of the trade who have faxed or-emailed the registration form would get an e-mail message from ICEGATE confirming the completion of partnership creation).

A “trading partnership” in ICEGATE refers to relationship between the CHA/importer/exporter and the Custom House and has to be created by personnel sitting at ICEGATE.

The Partnership Registration is an offline process in ICEGATE. Once the Membership registration is complete, the end user gets a message confirming creation of partnership after which the user (CHA/importer/exporter) can start his transactions with ICEGATE.

Registration is a one-time activity and involves a one-time registration fee, which will not be charged during the trial period. Registration fee will however be charged after the trial period is over. Members of the trade will be informed suitably.

4) Transactions

Once the registration formalities are completed, the members of the trade would be in a position to file and receive documents electronically through the Gateway on a round the clock basis. In the present phase of operations no fee will be charged. The fee structure, details and method of collection of the transaction fees will be intimated in due course.

5) Seeking help

Members of the trade may please note that the Custom House would be shortly launching the Help Desk facility for the trade to report problems. However, in the interim, to report problems related to electronic filing, members of the Trade may contact the Custom House at the following telephone numbers:

1) (011) 23370133

2) (011) 23370671

For issues related to messaging at ICEGATE, members of the trade and the officers of the Custom House may contact the Directorate of Systems office at (011) 2337 1033 or (011) 2337 0673.

The trade and industry associations are requested to give wide publicity to the contents of this Public Notice.

( R.S. SIDHU)

Commissioner of Customs (Export)

New Custom House, New Delhi

Annexure A

Transmission Mechanism

A. System requirements

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:

Hardware Requirement

The following minimum specification has to be followed by the importer/exporter/CHA for the efficient communication.

Sl. No	Hardware particulars	Specifications	Remarks
1	Computer Model	Pentium
2	RAM	16 MB
3	Hard Disk free space	100 MB min
4	Monitor Resolution	Standard
5	Internet Connection Details	Modem speed 33.6 Kbps

The importer/exporter/CHA (Trading Partner) is advised to keep a back-up of all the data in the generated in his machine.

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:

The following specifications have to be followed by the importer/exporter/CHA (trading partners) for the efficient transaction and communication.

Specification is as follows.

Sl. No	Software particulars	Specifications	Remarks
1	Browser	Netscape 4.7 & above.
2	Operating System	MS Windows 98 license.

As indicated in Para 1( B) of the Public Notice, there are two methods available for submitting data to the Custom House.

(1) Using secure SMTP option

(2) Using the file upload option

(1) Using The SMTP option

Introduction

ICEGATE provides for the (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) SMTP option for the members of the Trade to file their documents. The security aspects of filing on SMTP will be taken care of by using Digital Signature Certificates. However, during the trial period, Digital signature certificates will not be used.

Steps for document submission using SMTP option

The following steps are required to send a SMTP attachment to ICEGATE:

Step 1: Create the appropriate electronic message (Bill of Entry/Shipping Bill)

The trading partner is expected to use the Remote EDI System RES or his local application to generate the electronic message.

Step 2: Installation of SMTP Client

The default SMTP Client to be used by the CHA/Importer/Exporter for sending and receiving E-mails on ICEGATE is “Netscape Messenger”. Installation Of Netscape Browser 4.76 installs Netscape Messenger.

Step 3: Configuring the SMTP Client

Navigate to the Preferences Tab under the Edit Menu of the Netscape Messenger.
Click on Identity under “Mail & Newsgroups” section. Enter the following details in this section:

Enter the “Member Name” registered with ICEGATE in the text box provided for “Your name” as shown below.
Enter the “E-mail address” registered with ICEGATE in the text box provided for “E-mail address” as shown below.
Press “OK” to save the above details entered.

Click on “Mail Servers” under “Mail & Newsgroups” section. Enter the following details in this section:

Click on ADD and give the Incoming mail server name as provided by the mail service provider. Example: mail.mantraonline.com. Refer the Screen shown below:

Enter the Outgoing mail server name as provided by the mail service provider. Example: mail.mantraonline.com. Refer the Screen shown below:

Configuring the MIME TYPE: Navigate to “Applications” under “Navigator” section in the Preferences Tab, as shown below:

Click on the button “New Type” and enter the following details as per the MIME Type specifications mentioned in the document for each message. For example, the details required for “Bill Of Entry” is shown below:

Description: Bill Of Entry

Extension type: be

MIME Type: application/CACHI01

Application to open: c:\windows\notepad.exe.

Description: Shipping Bill

Extension type: sb

MIME Type: application/CACHE01

Application to open: c:\windows\notepad.exe.

Step 4: Receiving a electronic messages on ICEGATE

The importer/exporter/CHA would receive e-mails from ICEGATE on email ID established at the time of membership registration.

Upon receipt of the documents submitted by the Importer/Exporter/CHA at ICEGATE, an immediate e-mail confirmation message will be sent to Importer/Exporter/CHA that the file (Bill of Entry/ Shipping Bill) was received at ICEGATE. If it is a batch processing where more than one file (Bill of Entry/ Shipping Bill) is submitted, then the batch key is also displayed in the same email. The message received will be as follows.

******************************************

*** Your message has been successfully

*** Received by

*** server at ICEGATE.

***

*** You should receive a

*** Confirmation message from

*** ICES shortly.

******************************************

The Shipping Bill/Bill of Entry would be submitted to the Indian Customs EDI System (ICES) at the Custom House. The validation of the messages would be carried out by the ICES server, after which ICES will send a message confirming the file was processed. This message is the acknowledgement message of ICES and is the proof that the document has actually been submitted to ICES.

(2) Using the file upload option

Step 1: Create the appropriate electronic message (Bill of Entry/Shipping Bill)

The trading partner is expected to use the Remote EDI System RES or his local application to generate the electronic message.

Step 2: Open the Browser –Netscape navigator 4.76 and hit the website http://www.icegate.gov.in/upload/upload.html

The following File Upload page would be displayed, as shown below:

The user must follow the below mentioned steps for File Uploading,
User must confirm that file to be uploaded is having extension .txt.
User must click the ‘Browse’ button and choose the File (to be uploaded) in the User’s PC.
After Choosing the File to be uploaded the user must click the ‘Upload’ button to upload the file in the ICEGATE server.
If the user has chosen a wrong file, he can click the ‘Reset’ button to clear the entry and again choose the file using the ‘Browse’ button and repeat the above steps to upload the file.
The return message from ICES (such as Acknowledgement or any other message) will be sent to the user(Importer/exporter/CHA) on the email provided at the time of registration.