Customs halts ’’Door to Door’’ operations to prevent irregularities

The Sri Lanka customs would be regulating and streamlining the “door to door” operations  - a shipping method where freight is picked up at the door of the sender and delivered to the recipient's door, by making it compulsory for the service providers to send their unaccompanied Passenger Baggage (UPB) consignments to customs registered where houses for clearance.

The process would be applied to all the containers shipped on board on or after December, 01, 2023.

The move was taken to the streamline the process to prevent misuse of duty free baggage allowance leading to government experiencing  revenue losses, to prevent use of the service for smuggling of commercial cargo, to prevent restricted or prohibited goods including narcotic drugs entering the country , to  identify true owners of each package and Find a solution to the false claim that contents of packages gets stolen during clearance at Customs.

The custom’s Media Spokesman, Director of Customs, Seewali Arukgoda explained the “door to door” service shipping process is currently an unregulated one therefore the moves that would be taken would help them to distinguish sender and recipient of each package therefore if the contraband and goods in commercial quantities are found, those responsible could be arrested and action taken against them.

He pointed out apart from that process would also make the door to door operators compelled to disclose to customs the details of individual recipients where the customs could enter the information to the systems where entries can be processed (contents of each package will be available, and assessment of duties if any will be generated)

 Mr Arukkgoda further explained that goods will be split based on the type (UPB or Gifts) of cargo so that dutiable goods will be identified and duties recovered. He added the Customs clearance is complete, goods will be released back to the "door to door" operators to resume their delivery.

He added that shipments shipped on board on or after December 01 would need to be sent for customs clearance in one of the six registered warehouses. They are Trico Maritime (PVT) Ltd, Transco International Cargo Services, Laksiri Sewa warehouse, Middle East Cargo International pvt ltd, Ceylon Shipping line warehouse and Serendib logistics worldwide.    

Mr Arukagoda said that the new system would not be applicable for containers already shipped or will be shipped up to November 30, 2023. These consignments would be allowed to be cleared under existing procedure.

Timesonline learns that also learned that the receivers also complain that the three are loss of items and goods during the customs clearance, over-charge of the door to door operators.

The customs also had earlier notified the general public to send unaccompanied baggage via customs registered were houses during the month of September last year.This notification was advertised in newspapers as there was an increase of public complaints that the unaccompanied bagged items were being misplaced or damaged.