Change the custom

And CBEC chief A.K. Singh has made things a little simpler by making compulsory ‘‘No War Material’’ labels on scrap consignments. On Friday, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said that all scrap consignments would need pre-shipment certificates from one of about 29 recognised inspecting agencies at the source.

But such barriers on foreign suppliers ignore the core issue — India’s security infrastructure is either inadequate or badly allocated. The fact remains that 42 per cent of everything imported into the country arrives through a green channel—which means it enters entirely uninspected.

The Intelligence Bureau has already told the Home Ministry that Indian Customs law need rapid overhauling. The ICD Customs department — incredibly the only agency with a security inspection mandate in a container’s journey — is mandated to inspect only a quarter of all the containers it receives. There are no specific guidelines. And now, even this mandate has been withdrawn.

Opinions abound of how the ICDs — which manage 12,000 metric tonnes of metal scrap alone every day — should be given the mandate to open and inspect all containers they receive. And that Indian ports should have X-Ray screening equipment for all containers.

However, it emerges that a 100 per cent inspection mandate for ICDs would add innumerable costs and protract the lag time in importers finally obtaining their material from Customs.

The problem, as a senior Customs official says, is the balance between security, time and money. ‘‘Give us more inspection power but be prepared to wait more and pay a lot more. But there has to be a more comprehensive solution — national security does not have a price tag.’’ There are no easy solutions.