National Time Release Study (TRS) 2022

National Time Release Study- Relevance for UPSC Exam

GS Paper 2: Governance, Administration and Challenges- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Recently, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), presented a set of Time Release Studies (TRS) conducted by the department.

About: Time Release Study (TRS) are essentially a performance measurement tool for assessing the cargo clearance process of the international trade.
Time Release Study (TRS) is recommended by the World Trade Organization (WTO) under the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and the World Customs Organization (WCO).
TRS Mechanism: It adopts average cargo release time, i.e. the time taken from the arrival of the cargo at the customs station to its eventual release for import or export, as the case may be.

The National Time Release Study (NTRS) 2022 covered 15 major Customs formations, including four-port categories –
- Seaports,
- Air cargo complexes (ACCs),
- Inland container depot (ICDs) and
- Integrated check posts (ICPs)
These four port categories handle about 80 percent of the bills of entry (imports documents) and 70 percent of the shipping bills (export documents).
NTRS 2022 and the Custom House level Time Release Studies, have found strong affirmation for the four-fold ‘path to promptness’, namely:
- Advance filing of import documents enabling pre-arrival processing,
- Risk-based facilitation of cargo,
- Benefits of trusted client program – Authorized Economic Operators, and
- Direct Port Delivery (DPD) facility.

The NTRS 2022 has reported further improvement in the average cargo release time for all the four port categories in 2022 over the corresponding period of the previous year-
- by 2 percent for ICPs to a significantly higher 16 percent for ACCs.
For the sea cargo cleared through the seaport or inland container depots’ average release, the time has improved by 12 percent.
With this improvement, the ICPs have achieved the National Trade Facilitation Action Plan (NTFAP) target release time to be achieved by 2023.
In the case of Exports, the Study noted that the documentary clearance of export consignments has been significantly minimized, ranging from 4:04 hours in the case of ACCs to 47:41 hours in the case of ICDs.
- Documentary clearance of export consignments, measured by the time taken from the arrival of the goods at the customs station to grant of Let Export Order.
NTRS 2022 and local TRSs have also made certain recommendations to further reduce the average release time targets to meet the targets set out in the NTFAP and improve the trade facilitative eco-system in the country.

shivam