Customs to brush up their poor image

The Customs, under the Citizen’s Charter, is currently drawing up and implementing a sustained programme to improve the quality of services rendered to passengers. “The standards of service to be rendered by the customs are being benchmarked to the best international standrads under the programme. Passengers should be made aware of the quality of service to expect from customs officials at the airport and what he or she should do if these standards were not met,” Parande said.

At present, the work of customs is shrouded in secrecy and passengers are a little wary of customs officials. “However, thepassenger has every right to information about the working of customs, and the charter will inculcate a sense of openness and transparency in the work of the customs,” Parande added.

Emphasis is being laid on change in the attitude towards work. “It is most important to have an attitude to get things right the first time around. But if for some reason this does not happen, then the customs officials should regret appropriately and ensure that problems would not recur,” he said.

Giving statistics, Parande said that four million passengers were handled by the Customs at Sahar in 1997-98, with an average time for clearing an entire flight load being 15 to 20 minutes. While the customs was getting a positive feedback from passengers regarding the speed with which passengers were being cleared, Parande felt that a greater element of trust should be developed between the customs and the passengers. “The approach of the customs was to promote voluntary compliance and in that, trade had an important role toplay by promoting conformance and adherence of laws within the trading community,” Parande pointed out.